Artists Abstract Expressionism
Shafic Abboud, also known as Chafic Abboud, was a renowned Lebanese painter whose artistic journey led him from Beirut to the vibrant art scene of Paris in 1947. Embracing the modernist and abstract movements of the mid 20th century, Abboud honed his skills at the ateliers of prominent artists like Jean Metzinger and Fernand Léger. This exposure influenced his transition from figurative and landscape painting to his signature colorful personal abstractions. Despite his years in France, Abboud remained deeply connected to his oriental roots, drawing inspiration from oral storytelling and Byzantine icons.
Abboud´s creativity extended to ceramics, terracotta, carpets, and lithography. His exceptional talent garnered global recognition, with exhibitions in prestigious venues like Doha's Mathaf and Paris's Institut du Monde Arabe. In May 2012, Beirut Exhibition Center celebrated his artistic legacy in a comprehensive exhibition.
Margitta Abels is a German artist known for her abstract paintings and mixed media works.
Margitta Abels has received numerous awards and honors for her work.
Abels' work is characterized by its use of color and texture to create complex and layered compositions. She often works with a variety of materials including acrylic paint, charcoal, and collage elements, and her work often incorporates textural elements such as sand and fabric.
Carla Accardi was an Italian abstractionist painter associated with the Arte Informel and Arte Povera movements and a founding member of the art groups Forma (1947) and Continuità (1961). She studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Palermo and Florence.
Carla Accardi was known for her innovative use of materials and her exploration of geometric shapes and vivid colours. One of her notable contributions was the introduction of the "tela intrecciata" (interwoven canvas) technique, in which she used strips of coloured canvas to create textured and layered compositions.
Accardi's work often exhibited a sense of rhythm and movement, a dynamic arrangement of forms and lines. Her compositions are characterised by a sense of balance and harmony and often incorporate elements of repetition and symmetry.
Josef Albers was a German-born artist and educator. The first living artist to be given a solo shows at MoMA and at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, he taught at the Bauhaus and Black Mountain College, headed Yale University's department of design, and is considered one of the most influential teachers of the visual arts in the twentieth century.
As an artist, Albers worked in several disciplines, including photography, typography, murals and printmaking. He is best known for his work as an abstract painter and a theorist. His book Interaction of Color was published in 1963.
Wobbe Alkema is a Dutch artist, graphic artist, architect, designer and sculptor. He is known for his abstract and geometric works, often combining elements of constructivism and De Stijl.
Alkema was trained as an architect and then turned to art, studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Groningen. In the 1920s he was involved with the artist collective De Ploeg, which was active in the northern Netherlands and promoted modernist art and culture.
Throughout his career, Alkema continued to explore the principles of abstraction and geometry in his work. His paintings often feature simple geometric shapes such as squares, circles and triangles arranged in complex compositions that suggest movement and depth. He was also interested in the interaction of colour, using bright, bold hues to create dynamic contrasts and harmony.
In addition to painting, Alkema created a number of sculptural works, including abstract reliefs and freestanding sculptures. He also designed furniture and other functional objects, applying his principles of abstraction and geometric form to everyday objects.
Alkema's work is held in the collections of several museums in the Netherlands, including the Groninger Museum and the Amsterdam Stedelijk Museum. He is considered an important figure in the development of abstract art in the Netherlands, and his work continues to be admired for its innovative use of form and colour.
Charles Henry Alston was a mid-twentieth-century American artist. He is known as a graphic and muralist painter as well as a sculptor, illustrator, and educator who lived and worked in New York City's Harlem neighborhood.
Charles Alston was an activist in the so-called "Harlem Renaissance." He became the first African-American director of the U.S. Federal Art Project. The artist created murals for Harlem Hospital as well as a number of cultural and administrative buildings in New York City. Alston is the author of a bust of Martin Luther King, Jr. which was the first depiction of an African American to be displayed at the White House in Washington, DC.
John Altoon was an American painter and representative of Abstract Expressionism. He was an important figure in Los Angeles art in the 1950s and 1960s.
He studied at the Otis Art Institute and simultaneously attended the Los Angeles Art Centre College of Design. Known for figurative works, he was a member of the Ferus group with Edward Kienholz and Robert Irwin. He suffered from schizophrenia from an early age and in fits of depression and paranoia destroyed some of his work.
Constantine Andreou (Greek Κωνσταντίνος Ανδρέου; Portuguese: Constantine Andreou) is a Greek artist and sculptor of Brazilian origin who had a very successful career for six decades. Many have praised Andreou as an outstanding figure in international art in the 20th century.
Constantin Andreou fought in the Greek army during World War II and joined the armed resistance after the occupation of Greece. After the war ended, Andreou received a scholarship from the French government in 1945 and moved to Paris. There, in 1947, he developed an innovative artistic technique in which he welded brass plates together for the first time. This technique allowed him to find new forms of expression in sculpture and made him an innovator of his time.
During his time in Paris, the artist worked for a time with Le Corbusier. Andreou's works were exhibited alongside those of famous artists such as Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse and Max Ernst, which testifies to his outstanding artistic achievements.
John Armleder is a Swiss performance artist, painter, sculptor, critic, and curator. His work is based on his involvement with Fluxus in the 1960s and 1970s, when he created performance art pieces, installations and collective art activities that were strongly influenced by John Cage. However, Armleder's position throughout his career has been to avoid associating his artistic practice with any type of manifesto.
Helen Ashbee is a British artist, sculptor and jeweller. Daughter of renowned architect, designer and social reformer Charles Robert Ashbee.
Helen Ashbee was a textile designer and after the death of her husband, Italian painter Francesco Cristofanetti, she finds her real business in Paris - 'abstract sculpture' and related jewellery, for which she always did many preparatory drawings.
Milton Clark Avery was an American artist who, with his wife, the artist Sally Michelle Avery, created his own "Avery style. Avery was one of the most influential abstract artists in the United States in the mid-20th century.
His work is characterized by bright colors and recognizable geometric shapes. He often used these elements to create abstract compositions in which he placed great emphasis on the harmony of color and line. In addition to abstract works, Avery also created figurative paintings, often depicting landscapes and portraits. He used bright colors and strong contrasts to create emotional depth in his works.
Avery's work is held in many museums, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Guggenheim Museum, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.
Christian Awe is a German urban artist known for his large-scale murals.
He was educated at the University of Art in Berlin, where he lives and works.
Christian Awe describes his work as urban expressionist painting, his abstract works are saturated with vivid colors. Awe uses spray paint and acrylics, ink and watercolor, marker and oil pastel. His technique is characterized by scraping off the top layers of applied paint in order to expose those already hidden.
Hans Matthäus Bachmayer was a German expressionist painter and sculptor.
Bachmayer created large-format expressive paintings. His sculptures consist of individual pieces of wood glued together to form bizarrely shaped structures. The expressive colouring of the rough materials created an interesting tension between colour and form.
Giacomo Balla was a great painter of the 20th century, representative of the first wave of Italian futurism, one of the most influential masters of the last century.
Giacomo Balla's work is an attempt to convey dynamics, to capture the very essence of movement. His paintings are lyrical, full of light and rhythm.
Emil Bartoschek was a German painter and Bauhaus-artist.
Bartoschek's later work turned back to the modern painting and produced a large quantity of impressionistic, abstract, expressionist and surrealist oil paintings, drawings, watercolors, tempera paintings, charcoal, chalk and graphite drawings.
Afro Basaldella was an Italian abstractionist painter, a representative of lyrical abstraction, better known as Afro.
Afro's father and uncle were decorators, his two older brothers became sculptors, and to avoid confusion with surnames, the artist began signing his works with his first name only. Bazaldella trained in Florence, Venice and Rome. Shortly after graduation, his first monographic exhibition was held in Milan.
From 1935, Afro exhibited regularly at the Quadrennale in Rome and the Biennale in Venice. He made frescoes, notably for the Udine Opera House, and mosaics, and tried his hand at painting in a variety of directions. In 1941 he became a lecturer in mosaic painting at the Venice Academy of Fine Arts, and in 1950 he caused a sensation in the United States, and by the mid-1950s Afro's art was world famous.
Afro interpreted the Italian tradition in a modern abstract form that resulted from his painterly studies of color harmony.
Alexander Georg Rudolf Bauer was a German-born painter who was involved in the avant-garde group Der Sturm in Berlin, and whose work would become central to the non-objective art collection of Solomon R. Guggenheim.
Romare Bearden was an influential American artist, celebrated for his intricate collages that depict African American life. Born in 1911 in Charlotte, North Carolina, Bearden played a pivotal role in the Harlem Renaissance, associating with key figures like Duke Ellington and Langston Hughes. His artwork often explored themes of daily life, culture, and history through a unique blend of painting and collage, heavily influenced by Cubism and the Mexican muralists.
Bearden's most notable works include "The Block" and "Patchwork Quilt," both of which are praised for their vibrant narrative and depth, capturing the complexities of black urban life. His pieces are prominent in major museums like the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Beyond visual arts, Bearden's legacy includes his contributions to literature and music, reflecting his diverse talents and intellectual interests.
For those interested in exploring Romare Bearden's art further, visiting collections where his works are held or reading more about his life and impact on American art and culture can be rewarding. For the latest updates on exhibitions and sales related to Bearden's work, sign up here [insert subscription link]. This will keep you informed about new opportunities to engage with Bearden's influential legacy.
Erwin Bechtold is a German abstract painter and sculptor. He spent some time in Paris, where he had the opportunity to work with Fernand Léger.
Erwin Bechtold was the founder of the artist's group Ibiza 59, whose members sought to create art free of subjective expression. Bechtold's paintings from this period were characterised by minimal geometric forms and the use of a monochromatic colour palette.
Later in his career, Bechtold began experimenting with sculpture, creating large-scale works that explored the relationship between form and space.
Larry Bell is an American contemporary artist and sculptor. He is best known for his glass boxes and large-scaled illusionistic sculptures. He is a grant recipient from, among others, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation, and his artworks are found in the collections of many major cultural institutions.
Ciro Beltrán is a Chilean artist living and working in Berlin and Santiago.
He is a multifaceted artist, recognizable in Latin America, who seeks to reclaim public spaces, constantly pushing the boundaries of art.
Beltran graduated from the University of Chile as a visual artist and then studied at the graduate school of the Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf, Germany. He works in the style of abstract expressionism, creates paintings and installations, and participates in numerous exhibitions.
Sadie T. Benning is an American artist, who has worked primarily in video, painting, drawing, sculpture, photography and sound. Benning creates experimental films and explores a variety of themes including surveillance, gender, ambiguity, transgression, play, intimacy, and identity. They became a known artist as a teenager, with their short films made with a PixelVision camera that have been described as "video diaries".
Katherine Bernhardt is an artist based in St. Louis, Missouri.
Bernhardt is known for painting consumer symbols, tropical animals, and every day objects over bright flat fields of color in an expressionistic and almost abstract style.
Bernhardt has also been involved in numerous collaborations within the art and fashion industries. She has also collaborated with Flaunt magazine, EDUN, and Miss Sixty.
Remo Bianco is an Italian painter and sculptor.
He was educated at the Brera Academy. Bianco worked in the technique of collage, creating works in wood, plexiglass and metal, always multi-layered, carved in different forms. In parallel with his work on collages, Bianco created the most famous and most appreciated cycle of all his works, Paintings by Dore.
Elmer Nelson Bischoff was a visual artist in the San Francisco Bay Area. Bischoff, along with Richard Diebenkorn and David Park, was part of the post-World War II generation of artists who started as abstract painters and found their way back to figurative art.
Norman Bluhm was an American painter classified as an abstract expressionist, and as an action painter.
Bluhm's work has been critically praised and his works are in the collections of many major museums. His career is marked by notable stylistic shifts as he continually challenged himself to reach new areas of artistic achievements based on his profound knowledge of art and art history, use of the human figure, color, and a passion for life. Although his style changed dramatically over time, he remained deeply interested in gestural abstraction, and the ethos of Abstract Expressionism.
Umberto Boccioni was a famous Italian artist of the early 20th century, an avant-garde sculptor, the founder and inspirer of Futurism.
Umberto Boccioni made a great contribution to formation of philosophy and aesthetics of the movement. He was one of the creators of the Futurist Painting Manifesto and personally developed the Futurist Sculpture Manifesto.
André Borderie is a French artist and sculptor.
Classically trained as a technician and working as a civil servant in the telecommunications sector, André Bordari met the poster artist Paul Colin in 1942, who encouraged him to take up painting.
A fateful meeting with the Austrian sculptors Vera and Pierre Sekely in 1946 led Bordari to the decision to devote himself entirely to art.
André Borderi is known for his paintings, tapestries and ceramics.
Louise Joséphine Bourgeois was a French-American artist. Although she is best known for her large-scale sculpture and installation art, Bourgeois was also a prolific painter and printmaker. She explored a variety of themes over the course of her long career including domesticity and the family, sexuality and the body, as well as death and the unconscious. These themes connect to events from her childhood which she considered to be a therapeutic process. Although Bourgeois exhibited with the Abstract Expressionists and her work has much in common with Surrealism and Feminist art, she was not formally affiliated with a particular artistic movement.
Stanley Boxer was an American artist best known for thickly painted abstract works of art. He was also an accomplished sculptor and printmaker. He received awards from the Guggenheim Fellowship and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Joe Bradley is an American visual artist, known for his minimalist and color field paintings. He is also the former lead singer of the punk band Cheeseburger. Bradley has been based in New York City and Amagansett.
Bradley has developed a style of visual language that is fluid throughout both the art historical canon and the artist's personal experiences. Bradley continually reinvents his work in his paintings, drawings, and sculptures, with a profound fluency in iconic modes of art-making that allows him to elegantly move throughout Abstraction, Minimalism, and the gestural mark-making of Abstract Expressionism. Yet it is his awareness of both internal and external influences that frees him to take such ideas and make them all his own, never rooting himself in certainty. To him, the act of painting requires one to travel amongst the infinite conversations of painters past and present, frequently referencing what he calls the "shared space" of painting, an embracing of the relative nature of all visual art.
Erdmut Bramke is a contemporary German artist. She was a guest professor at the Stuttgart State Academy of Fine Arts. She has documented 600 paintings, 1500 works on paper, 80 solo exhibitions, 200 group exhibitions and the artistic decoration of numerous public buildings. Erdmut Bramke consistently represents concrete art. Her concern is the purification of art to a pure return to colour and form, structure and rhythm. In her work she strives for law, harmony and order, real content is not her subject.
Peter Brandes is a Danish painter, sculptor, ceramic artist and photographer.
Brandes' art is abstract and often in brown colours. He had his breakthrough as artist in the beginning of the 1980s. He has, inter alia, done artwork on Roskilde Domkirke and mosaic (colored glass) windows in a church at Nordkap and the church Village of Hope, south of Los Angeles. In 1998, he created the enormous Roskilde Jars which stand outside the main Roskilde Railway Station.
Brandes is self-taught and his art circles around themes from Christianity. Ancient Greek mythology has also inspired his art. Brandes has illustrated a number of books, for example Homer’s Iliad. A great part of Brandes' ceramic works are inspired by ancient Greek art and mythology.
Herbert Brandl is one of the most famous Austrian expressionist artists. He achieved success through his large-format works.
Landscape as a theme was always dominant in his work, where pictorial abstraction and subjectivity alternate. Since the beginning of the new millennium, Brandl's passion for the monumentality of mountain landscapes has become increasingly evident. Using various formats and techniques, the artist has reinterpreted the theme of mountains, playing with expressive gestures, abstract colour spaces and massive forms.
Fran Bull is an American sculptor, painter, and print-maker living and working in Brandon, Vermont and Barcelona, Spain. Bull became known originally for her Photorealism paintings made in the mid 1970s and 80s. In the late 1980s, Bull’s art began to develop towards abstraction, or neo-abstract expressionism. Sparked by her newfound approach to painting, in the mid-1990s Bull began to explore other media. Since that time her artistic output has included performance art, sculpture, mixed media, and printmaking, as well as painting. She has been especially prolific in the area of printmaking. Bull has produced many diverse series of etchings that continue to be exhibited worldwide.
Michael Burges is a German abstractionist artist. He creates his creations in a special technique of mirror painting on glass "Reverse Glass Paintings". The materials used are acrylic, gold leaf, aluminum. His Reverse Glass Paintings have an extraordinary color presence and aesthetic precision. Thanks to a proprietary design with an aluminum frame, the works seem to float in front of the wall. They interact with light and reflection, with random color patterns and structures.
Alberto Burri was an Italian visual artist, painter, sculptor, and physician based in Città di Castello. He is associated with the matterism of the European informal art movement and described his style as a polymaterialist. He had connections with Lucio Fontana's spatialism and, with Antoni Tàpies, an influence on the revival of the art of post-war assembly in America (Robert Rauschenberg) as in Europe.
Michael Buthe was a German artist who lived and worked between Germany and Morocco. He exhibited widely throughout Europe during his life and is known for his eclectic and prolific oeuvre which encompasses painting, sculpture, and installation.
Alexander Calder was an American artist celebrated for his revolutionary contributions to modern sculpture, including his invention of the mobile. Born into a family of artists on July 22, 1898, in Lawnton, Pennsylvania, and passing away on November 11, 1976, in New York, Calder harnessed his background in mechanical engineering to create kinetic sculptures that moved with air currents, alongside his monumental stationary sculptures known as "stabiles".
Calder's early life was marked by his creation of toys and various objects, showcasing his inherent talent and creativity from a young age. Despite initially pursuing a career in mechanical engineering, Calder's true calling in the arts was undeniable. He moved to New York City, where he enrolled at the Art Students League, laying the groundwork for his iconic artistic style. In 1926, Calder relocated to Paris, which became a pivotal moment in his career, leading to the creation of "Calder's Circus," a whimsical assembly of wire figures that gained him entry into the avant-garde art circles of Europe.
Throughout the 1930s and beyond, Calder's work evolved from figurative painting to abstract sculptures that brought motion into the realm of art, a transition influenced by his visit to Piet Mondrian's studio. His innovative mobiles and stabiles were celebrated for their ingenuity and aesthetic appeal, earning Calder international recognition and numerous accolades. Among his well-known public commissions are the .125 mobile for John F. Kennedy Airport and the monumental red-painted steel stabile, "Flamingo," for the Federal Center Plaza in Chicago.
Calder's legacy extends far beyond his sculptures; his work encompassed painting, printmaking, jewelry design, and even set and costume design for theatre productions. His influence on modern art is profound, inspiring future generations of artists to explore the kinetic possibilities of sculpture.
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Giuseppe Capogrossi was an Italian painter.
In the years following World War II, Capogrossi's work changed in favour of a more abstract style. His work was part of the painting event in the art competition at the 1948 Summer Olympics.
Capogrossi subsequently became one of the main exponents of Italian informal art, together with Lucio Fontana and Alberto Burri.
