Magazine

Clarity of Tone and Form in Barnett Newman Paintings

The iconic zip paintings of Barnett Newman, featuring thin, luminous vertical bands surrounded by immersive fields of color, are considered some of the most emotive and powerful works of the 20th ...

The Week in Abstract Art – The Feminine Gesture

Abstract art can be an excellent intermediary between people and their preconceived notions. By inviting us into a space of contemplation, it gives us a chance to address the eternal what, as in, ...

The Most Famous Abstract Paintings of Women

There is potentially so much more to a painting than what it reveals to our eyes. For example, what does it reveal to our minds? Some of the most famous realistic artworks are paintings of women. ...

Juan Gris on the Verge of Abstraction

The two artists most commonly associated with Cubism are Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. Rightfully so, since it was they who invented the style, and most passionately pursued its expressive pos...

What We Need to Know About Alexander Calder Paintings

Alexander Calder is most commonly associated with the introduction of the mobile to fine art. His whimsical, kinetic sculptures sway in the slightest breeze, transforming themselves into innumerab...

The Week in Abstract Art – What Our Future Holds

Every Thursday we highlight a selection of abstract art exhibitions going on around the world. We try to approach this weekly article from a unique perspective, tying the selected shows to a commo...

Ten Unforgettable Examples of Abstract Drawing

Drawing is one of the simplest and most accessible ways to make in art. Almost anyone can do it. All it takes is a writing implement and a flat surface. Yet as simple as the medium can be, some of...

Cubism of Sonia Delaunay and the Exploration of Color

Much could be, and has been written about the professional accomplishments of Sonia Delaunay. She was one of the most influential artists of the 20th Century. In her 20s, her visionary approach to...

Illusion and the Abstract in the Works of Jesus Rafael Soto

The difference between reality and illusion can sometimes be subjective. While a student at the School of Fine Arts and Applied Arts in Caracas, Venezuela, Jesús Rafael Soto tried studying Impress...

A Cocktail of Abstract Thoughts in Paris

October definitely was the month of contemporary and modern art in Paris. In addition to FIAC (International Contemporary Art Fair, the most famous event) about 30 significant other exhibitions an...

The Week in Abstract Art – The Primacy of Pure Feeling

Thirteen years after painting his masterwork Black Square, Kazimir Malevich published The Non-Objective World: A Manifesto of Suprematism. In it, he described the experience of arriving at his ico...

The Importance of Color in the Art of Hans Hofmann

It would be difficult to name a more influential 20th Century painter than Hans Hofmann. The biographies of hundreds of important artists, teachers and innovators would not be complete without men...

True Nature of Wolf Kahn Art

Two observations have often been made about the paintings of Wolf Kahn. First, it has frequently been mentioned that Kahn paints landscapes that reference the scenery around his homes in Vermont a...

Gutai Group - Gestural Abstract Movement from Asia

Written in 1956, the Gutai Art manifesto reads, in part, “We have decided to pursue enthusiastically the possibilities of pure creativity. We believe that by merging human qualities and material p...

The Complex Minimalism of Robert Mangold

The magic in art is personal. It begins when someone is transformed through an aesthetic experience, and becomes inspired in turn to transform the world. Many viewers perceive the art of Robert Ma...

The Week in Abstract Art – Partners in Time

We have been thinking about artistic partnerships lately. The idea popped up while admiring works on paper by the artist Jean Dubuffet, currently on view at the Morgan in New York. The exhibition ...

Is Dot Painting the Remnant of Pointillism?

Dot painting may sound benign, but it has had a long, tendentious, sometimes controversial history. The Neo-Impressionist artist Georges Seurat shocked the art world with a dot painting in 1886. N...

The Abstract Side of Thomas Ruff Photographs

We may complain that digital manipulation has made all photographs suspect; but even in its non-manipulated condition every photograph is only a partial truth at best. The biggest illusion photogr...

Vibrancy and Energy in Joan Mitchell Paintings

When we look at a Joan Mitchell painting we are looking at an image of liberty. We are looking at abandon made palpable. Mitchell approached the act of painting from a place of total freedom, with...

Anish Kapoor and the Abstract Essence in Space

When is form not form, and color not color? How do we create space by filling space? Can we separate the abstract essence of a phenomenon from its material presence? These are some of the mysterie...

The Week in Abstract Art – Spirits in the Material World

This is the time of year when many cultures celebrate the harvest and prepare for the onset of winter. Across the globe, people will don costumes and engage in festivities intended to embrace the ...

Finding the Color-Field Heritage in Sterling Ruby Paintings

The multiple simultaneous realities of the city speak in visual bursts on its innumerable surfaces. Glitzy, rotting, rusting, ancient, new, some marked for destruction, all intermingling, building...

What is Gestural Abstraction in Painting ?

The phrase gestural abstraction refers to a way of making art. It is a process, not a movement. With an abstract gestural painting, the point is not what gets painted. The point is how it gets pai...

Abstraction in Photography of László Moholy-Nagy

Today, photography is ubiquitous. Cameras are imbedded in billions of electronic devices, and it is hard to imagine any subject that has not been thoroughly explored ad nauseam in photographs. But...

The Revolution Abstract Acrylic Painting Brought to the Medium

Every artistic medium possesses qualities that affect the way viewers interact with it. As one of the newest mediums, acrylic paint communicates, among other things, modernity. What else is unique...

The Week in Abstract Art – Patterns and Randomness

Revelation is often associated with abstract art. Sometimes a revelation inspires an artist to begin working. Other times a revelatory moment lets an artist know a work is done. Viewers frequently...

The Role of Biomorphic Shapes in Abstract Art

Biomorphism comes from the Greek words bio, meaning life, and morphe, meaning form. It does not, however, mean life form. Rather, it means the tendency to exhibit the appearance or qualities of a ...

Cecily Brown and the Associative Abstract Painting

When we say that a painting is figurative we mean that its imagery is derived from the real world. By that definition, Cecily Brown is a figurative artist. The British-born New York artist makes p...

The Late Abstract Expressionism in the Works of Sam Francis

Some people say that for true artists, making art is not a choice; it is a compulsion. They make artworks whether they get paid or not, even if they get ignored. In other words, artists make art b...

Can We Find an Abstract Element in German Expressionist Art ?

Dark. Anxious. Frightening. Primitive. Crude. These are some of the words people use to describe German Expressionist art. For a visual reference of what those people mean, picture The Scream, the...

The Week in Abstract Art – A Culture of Forms

Every culture has its own language. That language includes verbal and written communication systems, but it does not stop there. The language of a culture includes every phenomenon that identifies...

Lee Krasner and Her Impressive Oeuvre

Some artists focus so intently on one particular style that almost any art lover can easily describe typical examples of their works. Others, however, purposefully and constantly evolve their styl...

Impasto Painting in Abstract Art

Perhaps the most symbolic building in America is One World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan. As the centerpiece of the development that replaced the twin towers that were destroyed in 2001, its ver...

Optical Illusion Art That Marked the 20th Century

Reality is not always fixed; or at least it can seem that way to the human mind. What we believe is based to some degree on what we perceive, but what we perceive is also sometimes determined by w...

Sigmar Polke and His Abstract Painting Experiments

What are the limitations of knowledge? Can we always learn our way out of our problems? Or must we sometimes rely on something beyond knowledge, like instinct, mysticism or magic? Sigmar Polke bel...

The Week in Abstract Art – The Dwan Legacy

Are you tired of noise, fraud and chaos? Do you crave nuance, rhythm and restraint? Why not go to Vegas? “Wait,” you say, “is Vegas not the world capital of noise, fraud and chaos?” Maybe. But we ...

What is Abstract in the Work of John Baldessari

While teaching at the University of California San Diego, the artist John Baldessari developed an assignment to challenge the attitude his students had about abstract art. He told them to pick out...

Appreciating Abstract Portraits and Their Particular Aesthetics

Abstract portrait artists confront peculiar challenges. When we see faces in everything; that is called pareidolia. When we see everything in faces; that is called empathy. Abstract portraits inha...

Goodbye Shirley Jaffe - The Painter of Flat Abstractions

The abstract art community lost a lovely and inventive painter this week. Shirley Jaffe was born in New Jersey and studied art in New York, at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and A...

Keepers of the Artistic Vision - Dia:Beacon Museum

Without shadows how could we understand the value of light? In the 1890s, Beacon, New York was an industrial powerhouse known as the Hat Making Capital of America. By the 1990s it was in shadow, w...

The Week in Abstract Art – Relationship Building

Artists and athletes are notorious for not understanding each other. But happily there are some among us actively working to reverse that cliché. Last week the city of Sacramento, California, unve...

Abstract Expressionism - Art Exhibition at the Royal Academy

Few Modernist art movements have proved, over time, to be as popular and influential as Abstract Expressionism. Art critic Robert Coates coined the term Abstract Expressionism in 1946 to describe ...

Anni Albers and the Abstraction in Textile Art

When the Bauhaus was established in Germany in 1919, it was a relatively forward-thinking academy. It synthesized the study of art and design in pursuit of a total approach to both, and it opened ...

The Art of František Kupka - From Figuration to Orphism

What is color? What is its purpose? What are its capabilities? It may sound strange, but there is much we do not know about the underlying phenomena that cause us to experience color. For example,...

What is the Most Expensive Painting of Abstract Art Ever Sold?

While we love exploring the less tangible qualities of abstract art, we are also keenly aware that it can be a wonderful financial investment. To date, the most expensive painting ever sold is an ...

The Week in Abstract Art – Structural Utterances

If you happen to be in New York this week you might see something rare: traveling architecture. A recreation of the Monumental Arch of Palmyra is on display outside of City Hall. Standing 25 feet ...

How Ad Reinhardt Taught Us to Look at Modern Art

What does it mean to be a purist? Is it like being close-minded? Or is the quest for purity inherently noble, like the pursuit of perfection? To the American abstract artist Ad Reinhardt, purity w...

Abstract Approaches of Modern Italian Art

Most people who study the history of Italian art learn about the classical masters from the High Renaissance and Baroque periods, such as Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael and Caravaggio. F...