Jackson Pollock. Number 28, 1950 (detail), 1950.
Enamel on canvas. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The Muriel Kallis Steinberg Newman Collection, Gift of Muriel Kallis Newman, in honor of her grandchildren, Ellen Steinberg Coven and Dr. Peter Steinberg, 2006 ©2018 The Pollock-Krasner Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
‘Epic Abstraction: Pollock to Herrera’ at the Met The exhibition ‘Epic Abstraction: Pollock to Herrera’ begins in the 1940s and extends into the 21st century to explore large-scale abstract painting, sculpture, and assemblage through more than 50 works. From December 17, 2018, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.]]>
Source: The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Iconic works from The Met collection, such as Jackson Pollock’s classic “drip” painting “Autumn Rhythm” (1950) and Louise Nevelson’s monumental “Mrs. N’s Palace” (1964–77) will be shown in conversation with works by international artists, such as Japanese painter Kazuo Shiraga and the Hungarian artist Ilona Keserü. The exhibition is punctuated with special loans of major works by Helen Frankenthaler, Carmen Herrera, Shiraga, Joan Snyder, and Cy Twombly.
In the wake of unprecedented destruction and loss of life during World War II, many painters and sculptors working in the 1940s grew to believe that traditional easel painting and figurative sculpture no longer adequately conveyed the human condition. In this context, numerous artists, including Barnett Newman, Pollock, and others associated with the so-called New York School, were convinced that abstract styles—often on a large scale—most meaningfully evoked contemporary states of being. Many of the artists represented in Epic Abstraction worked in large formats not only to explore aesthetic elements of line, color, shape, and texture but also to activate scale’s metaphoric potential to evoke expansive—“epic”—ideas and subjects, including time, history, nature, the body, and existential concerns of the self.
Highlights of the exhibition will include a group of paintings by Pollock and a selection of his experimental sketchbook drawings from the late 1930s and early 1940s that demonstrate the artist’s exploration of automatic techniques and his interest in Jungian psychoanalysis. Major works by Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning, and Clyfford Still will expand the representation of mid-century American painting, while a space devoted to Mark Rothko’s meditative compositions will offer a powerful immersion in color, feeling, and sensation. These heralded Abstract Expressionists will be joined by Hedda Sterne and Philippines native Alfonso Ossorio, who were also associated with the movement.
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‘Jackson Pollock: A Collection Survey, 1934–1954’ at the MoMA (exhibition, 2015)
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