American Art after 1940
Gallery 17
Emerging in the 1940s, Abstract Expressionism dominated artistic production and education at mid-century. Artists interested in psychology and the unconscious sought to create works that expressed states of mind, conveying mood and atmosphere through the thickness of paint, character of lines, and selection of color.
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, artists continued to embrace abstraction, pushing the limits of art by replacing the organic forms and textured surfaces of Abstract Expressionist paintings with geometric forms and hard edges. Emotional appeal gave way to formal experimentation, an affinity for slick surfaces, and a cool commercial sensibility.
Pop artists and Photorealists turned their attention to the surface appearance of everyday commodities—the foods we eat, the things we buy—and the billboards, shop windows, and packaging designed to sell them. Artists also experimented with commercial materials, like vacuum-molded plastic and neon tubes, and commercial production methods, like stenciling and silk screening. |
