Abstract Art – American Abstract Impressionism
The Blue Rider group was centered around the famous Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky, the Artist who has been accredited with the honourable title of the worlds First Abstract Artist. A short lived association, existing for just three years. Nevertheless, they were a highly influential group of Artists. The Blue Rider group dispersed in 1914, because of the eruption of the first world war. Two core members, Frans Marc and August Macke died in combat. Kandinsky and Alexander von Jawelensky returned to Russia. Despite this, their ideas continued to be developed in Europe, primarily through an influential Netherlander group known as ‘De Stijl’. Abstract Art had captured the imagination of Europe. In 1921 Kandinsky returned to Germany and began teaching at the famous Bauhaus a year later. In 1923, along with three members of the original group, Paul Klee, long time friend Jawelensky, and Lyonel Feininger, Kandinsky formed the Blue Four (Die Blaue Vier). In 1924 the group exhibited and held lectures in America. Abstract Art had become more well known in the United States after two major Abstract Art Exhibitions. One of which was held in New York, in 1913, and another in San Francisco four years later. After which, many of Americas younger Artists began experimenting and embracing the concepts of Abstract Art. One of the most famous of which, was Georgia O�Keeffe. In Europe, despite two world wars, Abstract Art had become one of the West’s most profound attributes.
Kandinsky continued to work at the Bauhaus, and promote his theories of Abstract Art In America. The Nazis closed the Bauhaus, a Modern Art and Architecture school, in 1933. Kandinsky sought sanctuary in France, away from the despotic world of the Nazis, who regarded Abstract Art, to say the least, as incompetent. Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky died in France, in 1944. However, his legacy to Modern Art, most certainly did not. Around the same time, new developments, within Abstract Art, were taking place. Abstract Expressionism really became a ‘showcase’ for American Art. However, it also had a huge impact upon European, Modern Art.
American Abstract Expressionism made such a huge impact in the West, that it toppled Paris from it�s pedestal and made New York the new world Arts center. Nevertheless, the term itself had been previously used, many years before, in 1919, to describe German Expressionist Oil Paintings. In America, the term Abstract Expressionism, was first used by Alfred H. Bar Jnr, in 1929, to describe the Oil Paintings of Kandinsky. Alfred Bar was an Art Historian and the first ever director of New York�s ‘Museum of Modern Art’. A highly influential man, especially with regards to the responses and attitudes toward the acceptance of the Modern Art forms, developing at the time.
In 1946, New York writer and Art critic, Robert Myron Coates, applied the term to the Oil Paintings of Kooning, Pollock and Gorky. Coates spent much time in Europe, and was a highly experimental writer. Indeed, there were many similarities between theirs, and the work of Kandinsky. Including many of the other European Artists, who had produced Abstract Art, during the early nineteen hundreds, like Klee and Jawelensky. However, the early Abstract Art was primarily concerned with the spontaneity of the spiritual, the conscious, and the unconscious mind. American Abstract Expressionism was not spontaneous, these were usually large Oil Paintings, which involved careful planning and execution. They represented a much more calculated and considered response to the world, which investigated both our conscious and unconscious spiritual responses to it.
American Abstract Expressionism took the world of Art by storm in the early forties. After World War II America became a place stifled by censorship. Abstract Art was so, exactly that, Abstract, it became a ‘safe’ way for Artists to avoid that censorship. Abstract Expressionism was widely experimented with among Painters. However, it was not a development that was limited to the realms of Oil Painting. There were many influential sculptors who played an important role, with regards to the American Abstract Expressionism movement. Many of whom, including David Smith and Herbert Ferber, also exhibited their work in the groundbreaking and somewhat infamous, �Ninth Street Show� in 1951. American Abstract Expressionism flooded the Arts of America and Europe, right up until the fifties. This was when Abstract Art would experience yet another metamorphosis, with the arrival of Minimalism.
About the Author
Angela Dawson-Field is an avid writer for Arts My Passion’s Oil Painting gallery. She divides her time between writing and studying art movements including abstract art and Modern art. She is an accomplished painter and produces wonderful portrait oil paintings.
Abstract Art Paintings by abstract artist Osnat Tzadok
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Abstract Cats Refrigerator Magnet $3.95 Handcrafted in the USA to the highest standards using licensed materials with great individual care and attention to detail. The image has been sealed between 2 sheets of crystal clear acrylic. We are certain that you will be completely delighted and satisfied with our product. All purchased Items will arrive via USPS and a the tracking # will be sent to you. We also offer matching Drawer Knobs, O… |
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‘Alternative Spaces’ $2,000.00 NOVICA, in association with National Geographic, searches the world to work directly with the finest artisan designers. Warm bodies in honey colors are faceless but their presence dominates the canvas. Flor Pachas selects pale green and earth tones to bring a dream to life. Set on a precise grid, squares of color frame the enigmatic humans in a cryptic oil painting. The artist sets forth alternati… |
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Jump To Swim Wine Bottle Holder~Abstract Sculpture~Wood This erotic wooden wine bottle holder sculpture will certainly make a great conversation piece. It has been masterfully hand-carved on the island of Bali from selected suar wood. Ayu Laksmi beguiles us once again with a truly remarkable piece that is infused with beauty and passion. It will make a wonderful gift for a special friend who is a lover of good wine…. |
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Hed Kandi: Beach House 04.03 $28.98 … |
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Abstract Logix Live! The New Universe Music Festival 2010 $13.38 (2-CD set) On November 20 and 21, 2010, maverick record label Abstract Logix hosted a series of spectacular performances, featuring an array of artists who handily defy genre categorization in favor of unbridled expression. The first New Universe Festival was a die-hard music lover’s dream, defined by artists who seamlessly mingle compositional ingenuity and improvisational grace and fervor. This … |
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Abstract Jazz Lounge $6.95 The ABSTRACT JAZZ LOUNGE is the first CD in a series from Nite Grooves. A unique CD filled with smooth and soothing live instrumentation, the CD is perfect for a day at the beach or a Sunday afternoon party. Many of the songs on this compilation have gr… |
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Strokes of Genius: Willem de Kooning [VHS] $19.95 BLUE RIBBON WINNER, American Film Festival CINE GOLDEN EAGLE NARRATED BY DUSTIN HOFFMAN. Willem de Kooning is regarded as the most illustrious abstract expressionist painter of the New York School. This award-winning film offers probing interviews with de Kooning himself as he recalls his early struggles, remembers his camaraderie with key figures in the Greenwich Village avant-garde of the 1940′… |
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Painter’s Painting: The New York Art Scene, 1940-1970 [VHS] $29.98 … |
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Strokes of Genius: Arshile Gorky [VHS] CINE GOLDEN EAGLE BLUE RIBBON WINNER, American Film Festival NARRATED BY DUSTIN HOFFMAN. Born in Armenia, Arshile Gorky fled the Turkish persecution and arrived in America in 1920. One of America’s most poetic and powerful painters, Gorky’s influence on his contemporaries gave birth to the New York School of abstract expressionist painting. In rare glimpses into his studio and through interviews … |
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If You’re Lucky Enough to Be Different Never Change # V2 Vinyl Wall Art Decal $14.99 Contact us within 48 hours of purchase for other colors if desired. Decal’s default color is black otherwise. For custom sizes, contact us prior to purchase for pricing. Some decals may come in multiple pieces due to the size of the design. |
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‘Baby Turtles’ Wall Panel $74.99 NVC1197: The Nyoman Karsa Artisan Collection is brought to you by Novica in Association with National Geograhic. This beautiful piece was handcrafted by Nyoman Karsa in Indonesia. An artisan story card will be included with your purchase. Flailing tiny flippers, baby sea turtles find freedom in the Balinese sea. Nyoman Karsa carves the little hatchlings in a suar wood relief panel. Gentle waves wash across the base of the design. ; About the Artist: Nyoman Karsa; Nyoman Karsa learned woodcarving from his father and the senior artists of his village. ‘I have had my own work shop since 1987,’ he says. ‘I usually carve sculptures from ebony, suar, crocodile, and hibiscus woods. Each wood has specific characteristics of color, durability, and aroma. Some of my pieces deal with traditional dances, the stories of Ramayana and Mahabharata, sports, animals, and abstract figures. When creating a sculpture, I first see it in my mind.’ Features: -Wall panel. -Suar wood construction. -Suar wood relief panel. -Gentle waves wash across the base of the design. -Hand crafted artisan quality. -Signed by the artist. -Each artwork is unique. |
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‘Love of My Life’ Sculpture $63.99 NVC1103: The Nyoman Karsa Artisan Collection is brought to you by Novica in Association with National Geograhic. This beautiful piece was handcrafted by Nyoman Karsa in Indonesia. An artisan story card will be included with your purchase. Blissfully in love, two figures merge, sharing one heart. This sensual, romantic sculpture is hand carved by Bali’s Nyoman Karsa. His sleek sense of artistic rhythm is admirable as slightly asymmetrical features accentuate the couple’s union. ; About the Artist: Nyoman Karsa; Nyoman Karsa learned woodcarving from his father and the senior artists of his village. ‘I have had my own work shop since 1987,’ he says. ‘I usually carve sculptures from ebony, suar, crocodile, and hibiscus woods. Each wood has specific characteristics of color, durability, and aroma. Some of my pieces deal with traditional dances, the stories of Ramayana and Mahabharata, sports, animals, and abstract figures. When creating a sculpture, I first see it in my mind.’ Features: -Sculpture. -Suar wood construction. -Accentuate the couple’s union. -Hand crafted artisan quality. |
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‘Please Dont Go’ Statuette $85.99 NVC1153: The Nyoman Karsa Artisan Collection is brought to you by Novica in Association with National Geograhic. This beautiful piece was handcrafted by Nyoman Karsa in Indonesia. An artisan story card will be included with your purchase. She stands and turns to go but pauses in a moment of uncertainty. Falling to his knees, he wraps himself around her in a fervent plea to stay. Expressed in the rich grain of suar wood, human emotions come to life. Nyoman Karsa sculpts a thoughtful portrait of a lover’s anguish. ; About the Artist: Nyoman Karsa; Nyoman Karsa learned woodcarving from his father and the senior artists of his village. ‘I have had my own work shop since 1987,’ he says. ‘I usually carve sculptures from ebony, suar, crocodile, and hibiscus woods. Each wood has specific characteristics of color, durability, and aroma. Some of my pieces deal with traditional dances, the stories of Ramayana and Mahabharata, sports, animals, and abstract figures. When creating a sculpture, I first see it in my mind.’ Features: -Statuette. -Suar wood construction. -Human emotions come to life. -Expressed in rich grain. -Hand crafted artisan quality. -Signed by the artist. -Each artwork is unique. |
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‘World Peace’ Sculpture $59.95 NVC1107: The Nyoman Karsa Artisan Collection is brought to you by Novica in Association with National Geograhic. This beautiful piece was handcrafted by Nyoman Karsa in Indonesia. An artisan story card will be included with your purchase. Hands clasped in harmony, two dancers form an unbroken circle of peace. Born of the limitless imagination of Nyoman Karsa, this suar wood sculpture symbolizes earthly peace, harmony and intimacy. ; About the Artist: Nyoman Karsa; Nyoman Karsa learned woodcarving from his father and the senior artists of his village. ‘I have had my own work shop since 1987,’ he says. ‘I usually carve sculptures from ebony, suar, crocodile, and hibiscus woods. Each wood has specific characteristics of color, durability, and aroma. Some of my pieces deal with traditional dances, the stories of Ramayana and Mahabharata, sports, animals, and abstract figures. When creating a sculpture, I first see it in my mind.’ Features: -Sculpture. -Suar wood construction. -Hands clasped in harmony, two dancers form an unbroken circle of peace. -Born of limitless imagination. -Harmony and intimacy. -Hand crafted artisan quality. -Each artwork is unique. |
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100 Artists Of The Male Figure $50 Images of the classical female figure are more prevalent in the contemporary figurative art world, as the nude male has been shunned as too potent or treated as a sex symbol. This book bravely showcases works by male and female artists from around the world that focus on this classic subject. Painting, drawings, and sculptures display broad and varied styles, including portraiture, studies, Pop Art, abstract, and photorealism. Read each artist”s approach to the male figure through candid personal statements. Nearly 400 works capture masculine beauty in many styles. This resource brings balance to the figurative art world and is an ideal reference for artists, curators, dealers, students, and collectors. |
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500 Animals in Clay $24.95 No other volume has ever presented such a diverse and captivating collection of contemporary animal-themed ceramics. Juried by distinguished artist and educator Joe Bova, this magnificent gallery includes pieces from an international group of artists; the beautifully crafted works range from the representational to the abstract, from artful realism to provocative surrealism (including animal-human hybrids). Ann Marais’ image of a waterfowl painted onto a porcelain dish has a restrained, Asian quality. Sharkus’ painted and smoke-fired stoneware turtle could easily be mistaken for the living creature. Bova provides astute and illuminating commentary overall, with selected artists’ notes. |
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500 Cups $24.95 In the hands of an expert ceramist, the once-simple cup can become an extraordinary work of art–as these 500 magnificent examples so beautifully prove. The exciting pieces come from an international array of artists, each with a unique perspective. The stylishly varied collection has a little bit of everything: the cups range from handbuilt to wheel-thrown, practical to sculptural, round to square. Benjamin Schulman’s Stacked Teacup Set takes a strictly functional approach, while Heather O’Brien’s Dessert Cups on Stand focuses on aesthetic form rather than usefulness. Annette Gates’ Espresso Shot Cups with Rubies has a surface design of simple abstract lines and dots of glaze and jewels. Some are whimsical, others starkly conceptual. Every one is a treat for the eye. |
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A Boatload of Madmen $27.5 In 1932, against the troubled background of the Depression, the American art community had its first glimpse of the revolutionary art of the Surrealists. Combining a fascination for Freud’s new symbolic language of dreams with a radical utopianism, the Parisian movement galvanized an emerging American avant-garde. New galleries opened to exhibit the terrifying , insane works of Surrealist artists, and new magazines sprang up to publish a startling crop of Surrealist poetry, criticism, and vociferous attacks on mainstream culture and politics.Four years later, a major Surrealist exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York catapulted Surrealism into the cultural limelight. Soon the art of Man Ray was selling cologne and swimwear and Salvador Dali was designing shop windows and a pavilion at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. Andre Breton and his circle, exiled in Manhattan during World War II, were unable to assert control over this new kind of Surrealism. If anything, their cultural dislocation in these years gave Americans the edge in developing new Surrealist concepts and movements such as Abstract Expressionism.This innovative and vividly written cultural history tells the story of Surrealism’s remarkable sea change during its years in America, from a fiercely leftist, strongly literary avant-garde movement into an apolitical, almost exclusively visual style. Exploring both high and low cultural perspectives, Dickran Tashjian shows how the American avant-garde selectively filtered and reshaped European Surrealism to meet its own agendas, and how it in turn was reinterpreted, depoliticized, and commercially exploited by mainstream American culture and thefashion/advertising industry. |
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A Century Of African american Art $29.95 The Paul R. Jones Collection is one of the oldest, largest, and most comprehensive holdings of African American art in the world. Jones, who was named by Art and Antiques as one of the top one hundred collectors in the country, began buying paintings, prints, photographs, and sculpture four decades ago and has now amassed over fifteen hundred works, many of them by well-known artists. Among the sixty-six represented in A Century of African American Art are Romare Bearden, Elizabeth Catlett, Jacob Lawrence, Henry Osawa Tanner, James Van Der Zee, Carrie Mae Weems, and Hale Woodruff. Lavishly illustrated with over one hundred color photographs, this book provides an important resource for the study of the works included in the Jones collection, the artists who created them, as well as the social and historical contexts that engendered them. The volume brings together ten essays, which examine four issues in American art: portraiture and realism in relation to abstract expressionism, the implications of color, the role of narrative, and the concept of multiple originals. Each essay makes the intentional effort to de-race African American art–not to strip the work of its idiomatic cultural footing, but rather to situate it within the larger picture of the nation’s history and cultural traditions. Reflecting the diversity of the collection itself, the contributors come from wide-ranging fields including American art, African American art, African art, art conservation, color theory, photography, and sociology. Together, the eclectic selections make a major contribution to recontextualizing African American scholarship in the broadest sense, while also providing important insights into theJones collection. |
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A Decade in Conversation: a Ten-year Celebration of the Bucksbaum Award, 2000-2010 $19.95 Established in 2000 by the Martin Bucksbaum Family Foundation and the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Bucksbaum Award is presented biennially to an artist living and working in the U.S. whose work demonstrates a singular combination of talent and imagination. A Decade in Conversation introduces each of the recipients–video artist Paul Pfeiffer, who often works with found footage; Irit Batsry, an artist specializing in video and installation pieces; Raymond Pettibon, whose acerbic and darkly satirical drawings critique contemporary culture; Mark Bradford, who specializes in abstract collage work and painting; and Omer Fast, known for exploring the possibilities of cinema. Featuring interviews with the artists and compelling illustrations and installation views, this book presents fascinating details about the ways the Bucksbaum award winners are shaping contemporary art today. |
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A Singular Vision $46.87 Over a period of four decades, Drs. Melvin Blake and Frank Purnell built a remarkable collection of works by some of the most prominent modernist and contemporary artists in Europe, North America, and Latin America. Guided by their personal taste and a clear preference for figurative art, they acquired over 100 distinguished works, almost none of which belong to the abstract movements that dominated the art scene during these same years. Taken as a whole, the collection contains a wealth of contrasts and similarities, while the works taken individually are rewarding for their particular expressive features. A Singular Vision features 45 paintings, sculptures, drawings, and pastels from the collection, illustrated in full color, along with an informal discussion of the works independently and as a group. Among the masterpieces presented are works by Paul Delvaux, Rene Magritte, R. B. Kitaj, Fernando Botero, Larry Rivers, Domenico Gnoli, Lucien Freud, Claudio Bravo, Antonio Lopez Garcia, and many others. Each artist is working according to his or her own singular, provocative vision, but each finds a home, and a context, in the remarkable Blake-Purnell collection. |
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A Sourcebook of Nasca Ceramic Iconography $59.95 For almost eight hundred years (100 BC-AD 650) Nasca artists modeled and painted the plants, animals, birds, and fish of their homeland on Peru’s south coast as well as numerous abstract anthropomorphic creatures whose form and meaning are sometimes incomprehensible today. In this first book-length treatment of Nasca ceramic iconography to appear in English, drawing upon an archive of more than eight thousand Nasca vessels from over 150 public and private collections, Donald Proulx systematically describes the major artistic motifs of this stunning polychrome pottery, interprets the major themes displayed on this pottery, and then uses these descriptions and his stimulating interpretations to analyze Nasca society. ” After beginning with an overview of Nasca culture and an explanation of the style and chronology of Nasca pottery, Proulx moves to the heart of his book: a detailed classification and description of the entire range of supernatural and secular themes in Nasca iconography along with a fresh and distinctive interpretation of these themes. Linking the pots and their iconography to the archaeologically known Nasca society, he ends with a thorough and accessible examination of this ancient culture viewed through the lens of ceramic iconography. Although these static images can never be fully understood, by animating their themes and meanings Proulx reconstructs the lifeways of this complex society. |
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A Sweeper-Up After Artists $18.95 A tale told with humor, passion and grace. — Art in America Frank O”Hara called him, in a memorable poem, the balayeur des aristes, the sweeper-up after artists. He has been a friend or acquaintance of virtually every important American artist of the postwar period, and his art criticism and books constitute the first and most comprehensive critical and historical account of this extraordinary period. In the early 1950s, Irving Sandler, then a graduate student in American history, was awestruck by his first sight of Franz Kline”s painting Chief at MoMA. Graduate school gave way to being New York schooled. We see abstract expressionism give way to the new approach of Rauschenberg and Johns, and see that in turn succeeded by the pop and minimalist artists of the 1960s– Warhol and Lichtenstein, Stella and Judd. At every turn, there was Irving Sandler, intimately conversant with the art and the artists. 34 illustrations. |
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A Thing That Is $14.95 Robert Lax is one of the most original and at important American poets of this century. His work is firmly rooted in the American avant garde tradition, a generation of artists that includes John Cage, William Burroughs and the Abstract Expressionist painters. Much as Bowles chose Tangier, Lax chose the Greek islands. After working in the 40s and 50s as an editor for The New Yorker, a film critic for Time and a Hollywood screenwriter, Robert Lax left the U.S. for permanent residence abroad, where for 35 years he has written the abstract poetry that has won him acclaim among an ever-widening circle of artists and writers around the world. A early and continuing practitioner of abstract, minimalist and experimental concrete poetry, he has not wavered in his vision of creating a body of work with a purity that is radical in its asceticism and singleness of purpose. This is his first volume of all new poems to be published in America since the 60s. |
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A Thing That is: New Poems $147.23 Robert Lax is one of the most original and important American poets of this century. His work is firmly rooted in the American avant garde tradition, a generation of artists that includes John Cage, William Burroughs and the Abstract Expressionist painters. This is his first volume of all new poems to be published in America since the 60s. Much as Bowles chose Tangier, Lax chose the Greek islands. After working in the 40s and 50s as an editor for the New Yorker, a film critic for Time and a Hollywood screenwriter, Robert Lax left the United States for permanent residence abroad, where for 35 years he has written the minimalist poetry that has won him acclaim among an ever-widening circle of artists and writers around the world. An early and continuing practitioner of abstract, minimalist and experimental concrete poetry, he has not wavered in his vision of creating a body of work with a purity that is radical in its asceticism and singleness of purpose. |
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A Universe of Metal Sculpture $45 Henry Harvey”s delightful and scintillating writing style presents his universe of sculpting and divulges secrets and tips on everything from metalworking tools, the creative process, and life as an artists. Join Harvey as he deconstructs and teaches how he created sculptures including abstract fountains, coffee tables, benches, and organic abstracts. This colorful journey through Harvey”s 30-years of sculpting features galleries of commissions for presidents, Fortune 500 companies, and private collectors, as well as jewelry and outdoor sculptures. |
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Abstract Art $3.49 Abstract art in its many forms has been a dominant mode in the visual arts for the better part of a century. Popular histories usually trace abstraction as a succession of style or isms, each set within it particular art-historical context, assuming a general familiarity with this kind of critical narrative. The book addresses itself to the interested non-specialist who frequents galleries and reads art books, but who often feels mystified when confronted by abstract work. Abstract art by its nature demands an imaginative response, a personal constructon of meaning. Mel Gooding offers readings of specific paintings and sculptures–by artists such as Kandinsky, Mondrian, Gabo and Polloc–treating them as exemplary of particular tendencies within the overlapping histories of abstraction. The book defines distinctions between types of abstract art that may seem similar and discoveries underlying correspondences between those that may seem different, enabling the reader to identify links between abstract works across traditional art-historical periods. |
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Abstract Art $19.95 Explains how abstract art originated and evolved, discusses major abstract artists and movements, and looks at the current revival of abstract painting. |
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Abstract Art Against Autonomy $96.45 In Abstract Art Against Autonomy, Mark Cheetham provides a revolutionary account of abstraction in the visual arts since the decline of the formalist paradigms in the 1960s. He claims that abstract work remains a vital contributor to contemporary visual culture, but that it performs in a way that is different from its predecessors of the early and mid-twentieth century and cannot adequately be assessed without new models of understanding. Cheetham posits that abstraction has reacted to paradigms of purity with practices of impurity. By examining abstract art since the 1960s within a narrative of infection, resistance, and cure, Cheetham provides an opportunity to rethink paradigmatic genres – the monochrome and the mirror – and to link in new ways the work of artists whose work extends and complicates the tradition of abstract art, including Yves Klein, Robert Rauschenberg, James Turrell, Gerhard Richter, Peter Halley. General Idea, and Taras Polataiko. |
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Abstract Artists: Nadir Afonso, Ant N Lamazares, Sebastian Spreng, Juan T. V Zquez Mart N, Berenice Sydney, Brian Rutenberg, Farouk Hosn $17.87 Abstract Artists: Nadir Afonso, Ant N Lamazares, Sebastian Spreng, Juan T. V Zquez Mart N, Berenice Sydney, Brian Rutenberg, Farouk Hosn |