Styles & Periods

• Artists
• Styles & Periods
• Associations
• Glossary
• Projects
• Purchase Guides

Post-Painterly Abstraction

In the 1960s the influential curator Clement Greenberg mounted a show titled “Post-Painterly Abstraction” at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. This was the first formalization of the term, which came to mean painting that veered away from the dense compositions and gestural brushstrokes of the Abstract Expressionists, and towards compositions of clarity and openness. Post-Painterly Abstraction is the most inclusive term for this new direction of painting that came to include Color-Field painting, Hard-Edge painting, and others. Generally the painters of these movements distilled the active, expressive strokes of Abstract Expressionism into broad planes of color that were just as emotionally charged. This reinvention of abstract painting breathed new life into the modern painting tradition by eliminating fantasy, object and figuration from compositions. Sam Francis, Helen Frankenthaler, Ellsworth Kelly, Mark Rothko, Frank Stella and Jules Olitski, while having disparate styles, are all considered part of Post-Painterly Abstraction.

Some Artists In This Style

Sam Francis
(1923-1994)

Helen Frankenthaler
(1928-2011)

Cy Twombly
(1929-2011)

Feeling inspired? Try out these fine products…

From $19.99 Mixed Media Portraits with Pam Carriker by North Light Includes 15 step-by-step demonstrations.	From $2.09 Dina Wakley Media Heavy Body Acrylic Paints by Ranger An artist inspired color palette	From $8.99 Drawing Class Essential Tools Kit – Mixed Drawing Media by General's Everything you need
From $2.79 Matte Metallics Paint by DecoArt Inexpensive way to create sophisticated, elegant pieces	From $3.79 Cedar Pointe Pencils + Sharpener by General's Natural Cedar finish pencils with the unique black eraser	From $22.19 20 Projects for Alcohol Inks by Schiffer A workbook for creating your best art.