Post-painterly abstraction

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Post-painterly abstraction is a term created by art critic Clement Greenberg[1] as the title for an exhibit he curated for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1964, which subsequently travelled to the Walker Art Center and the Art Gallery of Toronto.

Greenberg had perceived that there was a new movement in painting that derived from the abstract expressionism of the 1940s and 1950s but "favored openness or clarity" as opposed to the dense painterly surfaces of that painting style. The 31 artists in the exhibition included Walter Darby Bannard, Jack Bush, Gene Davis, Thomas Downing, Friedel Dzubas, Paul Feeley, John Ferren, Sam Francis, Helen Frankenthaler, Sam Gilliam, Al Held, Ellsworth Kelly, Nicholas Krushenick, Alexander Liberman, Morris Louis, Arthur Fortescue McKay, Howard Mehring, Kenneth Noland, Jules Olitski, Ray Parker, David Simpson, Albert Stadler, Frank Stella, Mason Wells, Ward Jackson, Emerson Woelffer, and a number of other American and Canadian artists who were becoming well-known in the 1960s.[2]

Among the prior generation of contemporary artists, Barnett Newman has been singled out as one who anticipated "some of the characteristics of post-painterly abstraction."[3]

As painting continued to move in different directions, initially away from abstract expressionism, the term "post-painterly abstraction", was used for works alongside minimalism, hard-edge painting, lyrical abstraction, and color field painting.[4]

The term remains current, being used to describe the work of such artists as Gary Komarin, distinct for its rich and elegantly composed color fields with an assortment of private iconic cake and vessel-like objects.[5] In 1996, Komarin's work was included in a pivotal exhibition at 41 Greene Street in New York City, along with work by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Philip Guston and Bill Traylor. In 2008, he had a solo museum exhibition at the Musee Kiyoharu Shirakaba in Japan. The exhibition and catalogue, Moon Flows Like a Willow, was orchestrated by the Yoshii Foundation in Tokyo with galleries in New York, Tokyo and Paris. Komarin was also invited to exhibit his Vessel grouping on paper at the privately owned Musee Mougins in Mougins, France. This museum is privately owned by one of Komarin's London collectors. Komarin's work has also been included in curated group shows in New York, Dubai, and Zurich along with works by Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, Jeff Koons, Yves Klein, and Joan Miró. Komarin has also exhibited in the past decade in catalog exhibitions in New York, Bogota, Zurich, Dubai, Paris, Palm Beach, Houston, San Francisco, Denver, Assisi and London.

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ "Post-painterly abstraction".
  2. ^ list of artists in the exhibition Retrieved August 17, 2010
  3. ^ Edward Lucie-Smith, Lives of the Great Twentieth Century Artists, New York, Rizzoli, 1986; p. 257.
  4. ^ "SBMA: exhibitions > current > Colorscope: Abstract Painting 1960-1979". Sbmuseart.org. Archived from the original on 2015-09-24. Retrieved 2010-08-17.
  5. ^ "Gary Komarin". Gary Komarin. Retrieved 2022-03-05.

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