American art came of age with the first important modern movement by a group of New York painters who became known as abstract expressionists. In the 1940s and 50s their aggressive action painting challenged the School of Paris. Tenaciously American (though several were born abroad), these painters were not content to imitate European masters and styles. They were struggling to express their own transcendental values that emphasized freedom, impulse,...

Rauschenberg's active involvement with life carries over into his painting. The combine-painting of the 1950s integrated two- and three-dimensional elements and inhabited both wall and floor space. These assemblages included discarded thrift shop-type objects such as automobile tires, stuffed birds, doors, and electric light fixtures, as well as the two-dimensional painterly surfaces reminiscent of abstract expressionism. This intense injection of...

Of the generation following the abstract expressionists, Don Judd was one of the key figures among American artists who pioneered new directions in the 1960s. He was born in the Midwest in 1928, eventually settled in New York and supported himself by writing for art magazines. At Columbia University, under Rudolf Wittkower and Meyer Schapiro, he earned a masters degree in art history. Judd had begun as a painter but soon was drawn to making objects...

During this critical decade in American life, artists built on the styles of the 1950s. An explosion of artistic energy produced Pop art, Minimalism, color-field painting, and hard-edged abstraction. Sculptors and painters on both coasts explored new methods and new subject matter. American art in the sixties examines the key figures of that decade including Rauschenberg and Johns, two crucial transitional figures between Abstract Expressionism and...

Modern matters: A blow-by-blow account of groundbreaking modernism The modern art adventure began roughly 150 years ago in Paris. A circle of painters, whom we now know as Impressionists, began painting pictures with rapid, often impasto, strokes. They turned to everyday street life for subjects, instead of overblown heroic scenes, and they escaped the power of the establishment salon by organizing their own independent exhibitions. After this first...

The story of modern art begins with a revolution--when the realists started rejecting romanticism in favor of depicting life as it really was. Since that movement began in the mid-19th century, painters have been rebelling, rethinking, deconstructing, and challenging notions of what art is. Filled with stunning reproductions of some of the world's greatest masterpieces, this reference book offers a chronological journey through artistic revolutions....

Explore how artists evoke motion and the passage of time, including implying motion through strong directional lines and time through narrative devices. Study approaches to implied motion in Impressionism, Abstract Expressionism, and Op art, and the use of actual motion in performance art and modern sculpture.

A look back at the 1950s chronicles the tensions and innovations that lay behind the decade's more placid surface during a time of prosperity and contradiction.

In this issue of Videofashion Collections, see some of the highlights of New York Fashion Week! For Calvin Klein Collection, designer Francisco Costa notes a book of erotic Polaroids by Carlo Mollino as a starting point. He captures the strong sensuality of today's woman while giving the collection a bit of a sixties East Village vibe. At the Whitney Museum in New York City, Proenza Schouler presents a Fall 2015 collection inspired by abstract expressionism....

At 88 years-old, Audrey Flack holds a unique place in the history of contemporary art in America. Feminist, rebel, mother, painter, sculptor and teacher, Audrey’s often controversial 40-year career evolved from abstract expressionism in the 1950s to photorealism in the 1970s. One of the first women ever included in the famed Janson’s History of Art, Audrey continues to create, explore, and inspire with her unique style and indomitable spirit....