Abstract Expressionism

Though Jackson Pollock is widely considered as the poster child of Abstract Expressionism, a whole network of artists, in fact, contributed to the formation of the style that dominated the history of early postwar art. Encouraged by Peggy Guggenheim to submit some works to a major collage exhibition she was organizing in 1943, Jackson Pollock and Robert Motherwell, who were already well acquainted by then, teamed up to explore a medium neither of them had previously worked in. Their model of collaboration as camaraderie was a successful one; Motherwell suggested to Pollock that they work together for purposes of mutual support; despite the solitary nature of his personality, Pollock accepted . . . and even offered his studio as a shared work space.

The period 1946-47 is pivotal in the sequence of events, as it was then that key figures of the movement, such as Barnett Newman, Clyfford Still, Mark Rothko, Adolph Gottlieb, and Pollock, met for the first time at the influential galleries of Peggy Guggenheim and Betty Parsons—though Newman and Gottlieb were already close friends since 1923 and Rothko had joined their ranks in the late 1920s. By the fall of 1948, the bonds between Rothko, Motherwell, and William Baziotes had become solid enough for them to establish a cooperative art school at 35 East Eighth Street. Newman, who suggested the name “Subjects of the Artist,” joined the school’s faculty in January 1949. While each maintained their distinct visual vocabularies throughout their careers, they still managed to forge a powerful style, in great part through their intense friendships and intellectual common ground.