American Figurative Expressionism
Encyclopedia
According to Marilyn Stokstad
, the art historian
:
• The Fauves
("wild beasts")
• Die Brücke
(“The Bridge”)
• Der Blaue Reiter
(“The Blue Rider”)
pioneered by James Ensor
, Edward Munch and Vincent van Gogh
. One of the earliest and most famous examples of Expressionism is the Starry Night which Vincent van Gogh
painted from the window of his room in the asylum at St. Remy.
of the 1950s represented a trend where "diverse New York artists countered the prevailing abstract mode to work with the figure."
Categories of figurative expressionist modes:
Willem de Kooning
, (1904 - 1997); Jackson Pollock
, (1912 - 1956); Conrad Marca-Relli
, (1913 - 2000)
Larry Rivers
, (1923 - 2002); Grace Hartigan
(1922 - )
Elaine de Kooning
, (1918 - 1989); Balcomb Greene
, (1904 - 1990); Robert de Niro, Sr.
, (1920 - 1993); Fairfield Porter
, (1907 - 1975); Gregorio Prestopino
, (1907-1984); Lester Johnson
, (1919 - 2010); George McNeil, (1909 - 1995); Henry Gorski
, (1918-2010); and Robert Goodnough, (1917 - )
Jan Müller, (1922 - 1958); Robert Beauchamp, (1923 - 1995); Nicholas Marsicano
, (1914 – 1991); Bob Thompson
, (1937 - 1966); Ezio Martinelli
, (1913-1980).
According to Klaus Kertess, curator of MOCAD:
Clement Greenberg
successfully challenged the public’s negative response to abstraction his attempt to communicate to the New York figurative painters of the fifties was less successful. A conversation recollected by Thomas B. Hess emphasized the perceived power of the critic:
In the winter of 1953 a new journal was founded, Reality. The editorial committee included:
The Journal’s intention was “to rise to the defense of any painter’s right to paint any ways he wants.”
In the Autumn of 1959 Philip Pavia, the “partisan publisher” of It is, a magazine of abstract art wrote in an open letter to Leslie Katz, the new publisher of Arts Magazine:
Although the New York Figurative Expressionists lacked advocates of the stature of Clement Greenberg or Harold Rosenberg
, they were recognized by critics who perceived them as the new radicals.
The literary historian, Marjorie Perloff
has made a convincing argument that Frank O'Hara
’s poems on the works of Garace Hartigan and Larry Rivers proved “that he was really more at home with painting that retains at least some figuration than with pure abstraction.”
Frank O’Hara wrote an elegant defense in ”Nature and New Painting," 1954. He listed the following artists:
who responded to “the siren-like call of nature.” O’Hara aligned the New York Figurative Expressionists within abstract expressionism, which had always taken a strong position against an implied protocol, “whether at the Metropolitan Museum or the Artists Club.” Thomas B. Hess, wrote:
modernism
bracketing the Second World War:
The German Expressionists’ images of Max Beckman, George Grosz
and Oskar Kokoschka
were the source of Boston Figurative Expressionism.
The early members of the Boston Expressionsit group were immigrants or children’s of immigrants from Central Europe, and many of them were Jewish with Germanic background.
Members of the Boston Figurative Expressionists:
Members of the Chicago figurative expressionists:
In the United States by the end of the 1950s… Abstract Expressionism was no longer, in fact, new... The crisis of Abstract Expressionism now freed many …artists to follow their long-frustrated inclination to paint the figure,” which resulted in the resurgence of the American Figurative Expressionsim. Richard Diebenkorn was among the earliest Abstract Expressionist who returned to the figure before the crisis of Abstract Expressionism.
Early figurative painters of the San Francisco area:
Bay area figurative artists 1950-1965:
,
Marilyn Stokstad
Marilyn Stokstad is a professor of art history at the University of Kansas, and an author of art-history textbooks, the most recent of which is Art History . Her textbooks can be compared to Janson's Art History....
, the art historian
Art history
Art history has historically been understood as the academic study of objects of art in their historical development and stylistic contexts, i.e. genre, design, format, and style...
:
- “ExpressionismExpressionismExpressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas...
(is) the manipulation of formal or representational elements to convey intense feelings.”
Early Expressionistic movements
Expressionistic movements before and after 1910 were developed by three artists' groups:• The Fauves
The Fauves
The Fauves are an Australian rock band. Their album Future Spa was nominated for Best Alternative Album in the 1997 ARIA awards but lost to Spiderbait's Ivy and the Big Apples....
("wild beasts")
• Die Brücke
Die Brücke
Die Brücke was a group of German expressionist artists formed in Dresden in 1905, after which the Brücke Museum in Berlin was named. Founding members were Fritz Bleyl, Erich Heckel, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff. Later members were Emil Nolde, Max Pechstein and Otto Mueller...
(“The Bridge”)
• Der Blaue Reiter
Der Blaue Reiter
Der Blaue Reiter was a group of artists from the Neue Künstlervereinigung München in Munich, Germany. The group was founded by a number of Russian emigrants, including Wassily Kandinsky, Alexej von Jawlensky, Marianne von Werefkin, and native German artists, such as Franz Marc, August Macke and...
(“The Blue Rider”)
pioneered by James Ensor
James Ensor
James Sidney Edouard, Baron Ensor was a Flemish-Belgian painter and printmaker, an important influence on expressionism and surrealism who lived in Ostend for almost his entire life...
, Edward Munch and Vincent van Gogh
Vincent van Gogh
Vincent Willem van Gogh , and used Brabant dialect in his writing; it is therefore likely that he himself pronounced his name with a Brabant accent: , with a voiced V and palatalized G and gh. In France, where much of his work was produced, it is...
. One of the earliest and most famous examples of Expressionism is the Starry Night which Vincent van Gogh
Vincent van Gogh
Vincent Willem van Gogh , and used Brabant dialect in his writing; it is therefore likely that he himself pronounced his name with a Brabant accent: , with a voiced V and palatalized G and gh. In France, where much of his work was produced, it is...
painted from the window of his room in the asylum at St. Remy.
Early American Figurative Expressionists in the 1930s and 1940s
According to Klaus Kertess, curator of MOCAD:- "Ironically, in the late thirties and forties, on the eve of the new abstractionAbstractionAbstraction is a process by which higher concepts are derived from the usage and classification of literal concepts, first principles, or other methods....
's purge of figuration and its rise to all-encompassing prominence, the figure began to acquire a new and forceful vigorVigorVigor is a clone of vi for UNIX that adds, as a joke, a cruel parody of Clippit, the Microsoft Office assistant. The name is a portmanteau of vi and Igor, Dr. Frankenstein's assistant. Vigor was written by Joel Ray "Piquan" Holveck in Sunnyvale, California, and the logo for Vigor was created by...
."
- Myth and SpiritualitySpiritualitySpirituality can refer to an ultimate or an alleged immaterial reality; an inner path enabling a person to discover the essence of his/her being; or the “deepest values and meanings by which people live.” Spiritual practices, including meditation, prayer and contemplation, are intended to develop...
were represented by Max Weber (artist)Max Weber (artist)For the social theorist and philosopher, see Max WeberMax Weber was a Jewish-American painter who worked in the style of cubism before migrating to Jewish themes towards the end of his life.-Biography:...
(1881-1961) and Marsden HartleyMarsden HartleyMarsden Hartley was an American Modernist painter, poet, and essayist.-Early life and education:Hartley was born in Lewiston, Maine, where his English parents had settled. He was the youngest of nine children. His mother died when he was eight, and his father remarried four years later to Martha...
(1877-1943) - Lyric restraint was represented by Milton AveryMilton AveryMilton Avery was an American modern painter. Born in Altmar, New York, he moved to Connecticut in 1898 and later to New York City.-Biography:...
(1885-1965) - Visible clarity and directness were represented by Edwin DickinsonEdwin DickinsonEdwin Walter Dickinson was an American painter and draftsman best known for psychologically charged self-portraits, quickly painted landscapes, which he called premier coups, and large, hauntingly enigmatic paintings involving figures and objects painted from observation, in which he invested his...
(1891-1978)
New York Figurative Expressionism of the 1950s
New York Figurative ExpressionismNew York Figurative Expressionism
New York Figurative Expressionism of the 1950s represented a trend where "diverse New York artists countered the prevailing abstract mode to work with the figure."-Categories of figurative expressionist modes:...
of the 1950s represented a trend where "diverse New York artists countered the prevailing abstract mode to work with the figure."
Categories of figurative expressionist modes:
- The figure can refer to an armatureArmatureArmature may refer to:* Armature , the kinematic chains used in computer animation to simulate the motions of virtual characters...
or framework on which expressionist canvases are built:
Willem de Kooning
Willem de Kooning
Willem de Kooning was a Dutch American abstract expressionist artist who was born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands....
, (1904 - 1997); Jackson Pollock
Jackson Pollock
Paul Jackson Pollock , known as Jackson Pollock, was an influential American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. During his lifetime, Pollock enjoyed considerable fame and notoriety. He was regarded as a mostly reclusive artist. He had a volatile personality, and...
, (1912 - 1956); Conrad Marca-Relli
Conrad Marca-Relli
Conrad Marca-Relli was an American artist who belonged to the early generation of New York School Abstract Expressionist artists whose artistic innovation by the 1950s had been recognized across the Atlantic, including Paris...
, (1913 - 2000)
- The figure was influenced by Old MasterOld Master"Old Master" is a term for a European painter of skill who worked before about 1800, or a painting by such an artist. An "old master print" is an original print made by an artist in the same period...
and historyHistoryHistory is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
painting:
Larry Rivers
Larry Rivers
Larry Rivers was an American artist, musician, filmmaker and occasional actor. Rivers resided and maintained studios in New York City, Southampton, New York and Zihuatanejo, Mexico.-Biography:...
, (1923 - 2002); Grace Hartigan
Grace Hartigan
Grace Hartigan was an American Abstract Expressionist painter of the New York School in the 1950s.-Biography and early career:...
(1922 - )
- Representational portraiture:
Elaine de Kooning
Elaine de Kooning
Elaine de Kooning was an Abstract Expressionist, Figurative Expressionist painter in the post-World War II era and editorial associate for Art News magazine...
, (1918 - 1989); Balcomb Greene
Balcomb Greene
Balcomb Greene and his wife, artist Gertrude Glass Greene, were heavily involved in political activism to promote mainstream acceptance of abstract art. They were founding members of the American Abstract Artists organization. His early style was completely non-objective. Juan Gris and Piet...
, (1904 - 1990); Robert de Niro, Sr.
Robert De Niro, Sr.
Robert Henry De Niro, Sr. was an American abstract expressionist painter and the father of actor Robert De Niro.-Life and career:...
, (1920 - 1993); Fairfield Porter
Fairfield Porter
Fairfield Porter was an American painter and art critic. He was the brother of photographer Eliot Porter and the brother-in-law of federal Reclamation Commissioner Michael W. Straus....
, (1907 - 1975); Gregorio Prestopino
Gregorio Prestopino
Gregorio Prestopino, was an American artist, according to the art historian Irma B. Jaffe:one of the major American painters who refused to reject the image, has devoted his career to depicting the human condition with a warmth tempered only by honesty.-Biography:Prestopino was born in New York...
, (1907-1984); Lester Johnson
Lester Johnson (artist)
Lester Johnson was an American artist.As a figurative expressionist and member of the Second Generation of the New York School, painter Lester Johnson remained dedicated to the human figure as means of expression through the many stylistic changes of his oeuvre.In New York, Johnson exhibited at...
, (1919 - 2010); George McNeil, (1909 - 1995); Henry Gorski
Henry Gorski
Henry Gorski was an American Figurative Expressionist artist. Born in Buffalo, New York, of Polish extraction, Gorski received his BFA from the University of Buffalo in 1939. Gorski lived in the New Haven, Connecticut, area, and was married to the textile artist Bernie Gorski.Active from 1948...
, (1918-2010); and Robert Goodnough, (1917 - )
- ”Allegorical Mythical painting that brought stylistic elements of the GermanGermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
expressionists to the heroic scaleMeasurementMeasurement is the process or the result of determining the ratio of a physical quantity, such as a length, time, temperature etc., to a unit of measurement, such as the metre, second or degree Celsius...
of the Abstract expressionists: "
Jan Müller, (1922 - 1958); Robert Beauchamp, (1923 - 1995); Nicholas Marsicano
Nicholas Marsicano
Nicholas Marsicano , American painter and teacher of the New York School, was married to Dancer/Choreagrapher Merle Marsicano...
, (1914 – 1991); Bob Thompson
Bob Thompson (painter)
Bob Thompson was an African-American figurative painter known for his bold and colorful canvases, whose compositions were appropriated from the Old Masters. He was very prolific in his eight-year career, producing over 1000 works before his death in Rome, Italy in 1966. The Whitney Museum in New...
, (1937 - 1966); Ezio Martinelli
Ezio Martinelli
Ezio Martinelli was an American artist who belonged to the New York School Abstract Expressionist artists whose influence and artistic innovation by the 1950s had been recognized around the world...
, (1913-1980).
According to Klaus Kertess, curator of MOCAD:
- "during the late forties and early fifties... the figure in its role as harbingerHarbinger-Places:* Montes Harbinger, lunar mountains* Harbinger, an unincorporated community in Currituck County, North Carolina-Transportation:* Harbinger , ship also called Norfolk in 1797* Harbinger , thoroughbred racehorse...
of conservatismConservatismConservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism...
became an obvious target for abstractionist defensiveness—a defensiveness prone to blur the vast distinctions between figurativeFigurative artFigurative art, sometimes written as figurativism, describes artwork—particularly paintings and sculptures—which are clearly derived from real object sources, and are therefore by definition representational.-Definition:...
painters and to exaggerate the difference between the figurative and the nonfigurative. It was not until the late sixties and early seventies that the figure was permitted to return from exile and even to make claims to centralityCentralityWithin graph theory and network analysis, there are various measures of the centrality of a vertex within a graph that determine the relative importance of a vertex within the graph...
."
Aspects of Figuration in New York, 1950-1964
According to Judith E. Stein, During the war years and into the fifties, the general public was to remain highly suspicious of abstraction, considered by many as un-American. While the art criticArt critic
An art critic is a person who specializes in evaluating art. Their written critiques, or reviews, are published in newspapers, magazines, books and on web sites...
Clement Greenberg
Clement Greenberg
Clement Greenberg was an American essayist known mainly as an influential visual art critic closely associated with American Modern art of the mid-20th century...
successfully challenged the public’s negative response to abstraction his attempt to communicate to the New York figurative painters of the fifties was less successful. A conversation recollected by Thomas B. Hess emphasized the perceived power of the critic:
- “It is impossible today to paint a face, pontificated the critic Clement Greenberg around 1950. “That’s right,” said de Kooning, “and it‘s impossible not to.”
In the winter of 1953 a new journal was founded, Reality. The editorial committee included:
- Isabel BishopIsabel BishopIsabel Bishop was an American painter and graphic artist, who produced numerous paintings and prints of working women in realistic urban settings...
(1902-1988) - Edward HopperEdward HopperEdward Hopper was a prominent American realist painter and printmaker. While most popularly known for his oil paintings, he was equally proficient as a watercolorist and printmaker in etching...
(1882-1967) - Jack LevineJack LevineJack Levine was an American Social Realist painter and printmaker best known for his satires on modern life, political corruption, and biblical narratives.-Biography:...
(1915-2010) - Raphael SoyerRaphael SoyerRaphael Soyer was a Russian-born American painter, draftsman, and printmaker. Soyer was referred to as an American scene painter...
(1899-1987) - Henry Varnum Poor (1888-1970)
The Journal’s intention was “to rise to the defense of any painter’s right to paint any ways he wants.”
In the Autumn of 1959 Philip Pavia, the “partisan publisher” of It is, a magazine of abstract art wrote in an open letter to Leslie Katz, the new publisher of Arts Magazine:
- “I am begging you to give the representational artist a better deal. The neglected representational and near-abstract artists, not the abstractionists, need a champion these days.”
Although the New York Figurative Expressionists lacked advocates of the stature of Clement Greenberg or Harold Rosenberg
Harold Rosenberg
Harold Rosenberg was an American writer, educator, philosopher and art critic. He coined the term Action Painting in 1952 for what was later to be known as abstract expressionism. The term was first employed in Rosenberg's essay "American Action Painters" published in the December 1952 issue of...
, they were recognized by critics who perceived them as the new radicals.
- “representatives of a new generation to whom figurative art was in a sense more revolutionary than abstraction.”
The literary historian, Marjorie Perloff
Marjorie Perloff
Marjorie Perloff is an Austrian-born U.S. poetry critic.Perloff was born Gabriele Mintz into a secularized Jewish family in Vienna. Faced with Nazi terror, her family emigrated in 1938 when she was six-and-a-half, going first to Zürich and then to the United States, settling in Riverdale, New York...
has made a convincing argument that Frank O'Hara
Frank O'Hara
Francis Russell "Frank" O'Hara was an American writer, poet and art critic. He was a member of the New York School of poetry.-Life:...
’s poems on the works of Garace Hartigan and Larry Rivers proved “that he was really more at home with painting that retains at least some figuration than with pure abstraction.”
Frank O’Hara wrote an elegant defense in ”Nature and New Painting," 1954. He listed the following artists:
- Grace HartiganGrace HartiganGrace Hartigan was an American Abstract Expressionist painter of the New York School in the 1950s.-Biography and early career:...
(1922-2008) - Larry RiversLarry RiversLarry Rivers was an American artist, musician, filmmaker and occasional actor. Rivers resided and maintained studios in New York City, Southampton, New York and Zihuatanejo, Mexico.-Biography:...
(1923-2002) - Elaine de KooningElaine de KooningElaine de Kooning was an Abstract Expressionist, Figurative Expressionist painter in the post-World War II era and editorial associate for Art News magazine...
(1918-1989) - Jane Freilicher (1924- )
- Robert de Niro, Sr.Robert De Niro, Sr.Robert Henry De Niro, Sr. was an American abstract expressionist painter and the father of actor Robert De Niro.-Life and career:...
(1922-1993) - Felix Pasilis (1922- )
- Wolf KahnWolf KahnWolf Kahn is a German-born American painter.Kahn is known for his combination of realism and Color Field, and known to work in pastel and oil paint. He studied under Hans Hofmann, and also graduated from the University of Chicago...
(1927- )
who responded to “the siren-like call of nature.” O’Hara aligned the New York Figurative Expressionists within abstract expressionism, which had always taken a strong position against an implied protocol, “whether at the Metropolitan Museum or the Artists Club.” Thomas B. Hess, wrote:
- “the ‘New figurative painting’ which some have been expecting as a reaction against Abstract Expressionism was implicit in it at the start, and is one of its most lineal continuities.”
Boston Figurative Expressionism
The well-known art historian Judith Bookbinder established Boston Figurative Expressionism as an integral part of AmericanUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
modernism
Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
bracketing the Second World War:
- "(it) expressed the anxiety of the modern age with the particular accent of the city…Boston figurative expressionism was both a humanist philosophy – that is, a human-centered and rationalist or classically oriented philosophy – and a formal approach to the handling of paint and space.”
The German Expressionists’ images of Max Beckman, George Grosz
George Grosz
Georg Ehrenfried Groß was a German artist known especially for his savagely caricatural drawings of Berlin life in the 1920s...
and Oskar Kokoschka
Oskar Kokoschka
Oskar Kokoschka was an Austrian artist, poet and playwright best known for his intense expressionistic portraits and landscapes.-Biography:...
were the source of Boston Figurative Expressionism.
The early members of the Boston Expressionsit group were immigrants or children’s of immigrants from Central Europe, and many of them were Jewish with Germanic background.
Members of the Boston Figurative Expressionists:
- Kahlil Gibran (1922-2008)
- David Aronson (1923- )
- Hyman BloomHyman BloomHyman Bloom was a painter. His work is influenced by his Jewish heritage, Eastern religions as well as artists including Altdorfer, Grunewald, Caravaggio, Rembrandt, William Blake, Rudolph Bresdin, J.M.W...
(1913-2009) - Bernard Chaet (1924- )
- Philip GustonPhilip GustonPhilip Guston was a notable painter and printmaker in the New York School, which included many of the Abstract expressionists, such as Jackson Pollock and Willem De Kooning...
(1913-1980) - William Harsh
- Suzanne Hodes
- Jon Imber (1950- )
- Reed Kay
- Jack LevineJack LevineJack Levine was an American Social Realist painter and printmaker best known for his satires on modern life, political corruption, and biblical narratives.-Biography:...
(1915-2010 ) - Arthur Polonsky (1925- )
- Barbara Swan (1922- )
- Lois Tarlow
- Karl ZerbeKarl ZerbeKarl Zerbe was a German-born American painter.The works of Karl Zerbe are significant because they record "the response of a distinguished artist of basically European sensibility to the physical and cultural scene of the New World".-Biography :Karl Zerbe was born in Berlin, Germany.The family...
(1903-1972) - Harold Zimmerman
Decline of Abstract Expressionism – West Coast Figurative Expressionism
Chicago’s figurative expressionists of the 1950s “shared a deep concern with an existential human image of thwarted but inexorable endurance.” According to the Poet and Art Critic, Carter Ratcliff:- ”The Chicagoans of the 1950s never coalesced into a group. For all its incompatibility, their art shared one purpose: to announce the artist’s alienation in terms clear enough to be widely understood.’'
Members of the Chicago figurative expressionists:
- George CohenGeorge CohenGeorge Reginald Cohen MBE was the right back for England in the side which won the 1966 World Cup. He is the uncle of Rugby Union World Cup winner, Ben Cohen.-Football career:...
(1919- ) - Leon GolubLeon GolubLeon Golub was an American painter. He was born in Chicago, Illinois, where he also studied, receiving his BA at the University of Chicago in 1942, his BFA and MFA at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1949 and 1950, respectively.He was married to and collaborated with the artist Nancy Spero...
(1922-2004) - Seymour Rosofsky (1924-1981)
- H. C. WestermannH. C. WestermannH. C. Westermann was an American printmaker and sculptor whose art constituted a scathing commentary on militarism and materialism...
(1922-1981)
In the United States by the end of the 1950s… Abstract Expressionism was no longer, in fact, new... The crisis of Abstract Expressionism now freed many …artists to follow their long-frustrated inclination to paint the figure,” which resulted in the resurgence of the American Figurative Expressionsim. Richard Diebenkorn was among the earliest Abstract Expressionist who returned to the figure before the crisis of Abstract Expressionism.
Early figurative painters of the San Francisco area:
- Elmer BischoffElmer BischoffElmer Nelson Bischoff was a visual artist in the San Francisco Bay Area.Bischoff, along with Richard Diebenkorn and David Park, was part of the post-World War II generation of artists who started as abstract painters and found their way back to figurative art.-Biography:Elmer Bischoff, second...
(1916-1991) - Richard DiebenkornRichard DiebenkornRichard Diebenkorn was a well-known 20th century American painter. His early work is associated with Abstract expressionism and the Bay Area Figurative Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. His later work were instrumental to his achievement of worldwide acclaim.-Biography:Richard Clifford Diebenkorn Jr...
(1922-1993) - David ParkDavid ParkDavid Park was a painter and a pioneer of the Bay Area Figurative School of painting during the 1950s.-Biography:...
(1911-1960)
Bay area figurative artists 1950-1965:
,
- Theophilus BrownTheophilus BrownWilliam Theophilus Brown is an American artist born in Moline, Illinois. He became prominent as a member of the Bay Area Figurative Movement.-Background and career:...
(1919- ) - Paul WonnerPaul WonnerPaul John Wonner was an American artist who was born in Tucson, Arizona. He received a B.A. in 1952, an M.A. in 1953, and an M.L.S. in 1955―all from the University of California, Berkeley...
(1920-2008) - James Weeks (1922-1998)
- Hassel Smith (1915-2007)
- Nathan OliveiraNathan OliveiraNathan Oliveira was an American painter, printmaker, and sculptor, born in Oakland, California to Portuguese parents...
(1928- ) - Bruce McGaw (1935- )
- Joan BrownJoan BrownJoan Brown was an American figurative painter who lived and worked in Northern California. She was a notable member of the "second generation" of the Bay Area Figurative Movement....
(1938-1992) - Manuel NeriManuel NeriManuel Neri is an American sculptor, painter, and printmaker and a notable member of the "second generation" of the Bay Area Figurative Movement.- Biography :...
(1930- ) - Joan Savo (1918-1992)
- Rolland Petersen (1926- )
Books
- Judith Arlene Bookbinder, Boston modern : figurative expressionism as alternative modernism, (Durham, N.H. : University of New Hampshire Press ; Hanover : University Press of New England, ©2005.) ISBN 1584654880
- Caroline A. Jones, http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/21294814&referer=brief_results,Bay Area figurative art, 1950-1965, (San Francisco, Calif. : San Francisco Museum of Modern Art ; Berkeley : University of California Press, ©1990.) ISBN 9780520068421
- Paul Schimmel and Judith E Stein, The Figurative fifties : New York figurative expressionism, (Newport Beach, Calif. : Newport Harbor Art Museum : New York : Rizzoli, 1988.)ISBN 0847809420 9780847809424 0917493125 9780917493126
- Bram Dijkstra, American expressionism : art and social change, 1920-1950, (New York : H.N. Abrams, in association with the Columbus Museum of Art, 2003.) ISBN 0810942313 9780810942318
- Marika Herskovic, American Abstract and Figurative Expressionism Style Is Timely Art Is Timeless (New York School Press, 2009.) ISBN 9780967799421
- Marika Herskovic, ed. New York School Abstract Expressionists Artists Choice by Artists, (New York School Press, 2000.) ISBN 0-9677994-0-6
- Dore Ashton, The New York school; a cultural reckoning. (New York, Viking Press 1973, ©1972.) ISBN 0670509124 9780670509126 0670003689 9780670003686
- Gregory Battock, ed. The new art; a critical anthology, (New York: Frederick A. Prager, 1957or 3rd ed. New York, E.P. Dutton, 1973.) OCLC 788661
See also
- Figurative artFigurative artFigurative art, sometimes written as figurativism, describes artwork—particularly paintings and sculptures—which are clearly derived from real object sources, and are therefore by definition representational.-Definition:...
- Abstract expressionismAbstract expressionismAbstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...
- Bay Area Figurative Movement
- New York Figurative ExpressionismNew York Figurative ExpressionismNew York Figurative Expressionism of the 1950s represented a trend where "diverse New York artists countered the prevailing abstract mode to work with the figure."-Categories of figurative expressionist modes:...