Word: abstract
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...show is not a truly representative sampling of abstract expressionism in that it does not contain some of the abstract expressionist works typically thought of with the school and because it includes a few artists who are not strictly abstract expressionists. The holes in the Fogg's collection of work from the period and the fact that the exhibit is designed in conjunction with a current Fine Arts department offering on the subject, may explain why this exhibit does not provide the public with a sampling of great and famous moments in abstract expressionism...
...exhibit concentrates on the gestual element of abstract expressionism. Hans Hoffman's "Blue Rapsody", not one of his better efforts, dominates one wall of the gallery and features fire-work burst of paint. Hoffman who was probably more influential as a teacher than as a painter during his lifetime, generally filled his canvass with intense, vibrant color...
Ironically, Hoffman's painter colleagues who specialized in pessimistic views about the world expressed frequent feelings of pity for "poor Hans" who nevertheless adhered to a brighter view of things--a view which his canvases reflect. Hoffman, perhaps not in-coincidentally, was one of the few major abstract expressionists who did not commit suicide or experience periods of mental instability...
Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell Willem de Kooning, Arshile Gorky and Franz Kline are among the other major abstract expressionists shown. The lineup of artists is quite good, reading like a veritable Who's Who of the period. The work which represents them in this show is, however, another story. Jackson Pollock is a case in point. The Fogg owns a very good example of Pollock's mature or "drip" work (1947-53), but it is not on exhibit here because it's now in Washington D.C.--on loan to the National Gallery...
...experiences in Jungian analysis. This work which incorporates primitivesque figures and symbols reminds us that Pollock did not spend his entire artistic career dripping paint on canvas on his way to fame, fortune and artistic fulfillment. But even if "Figure" provides a good academic lesson, any show of abstract expressionist work is incomplete, as this one proves, without a mature Pollock to epitomize the nature and aims of the period--an expression of the unconscious through the emotional versus formalist use of color, line, paint and abstraction...