abstract expressionism


noun (sometimes initial capital letters)

a movement in experimental, nonrepresentational painting originating in the U.S. in the 1940s, with sources in earlier movements, and embracing many individual styles marked in common by freedom of technique, a preference for dramatically large canvases, and a desire to give spontaneous expression to the unconscious.

Origin of abstract expressionism

An Americanism dating back to 1950–55

OTHER WORDS FROM abstract expressionism

abstract expressionist, noun

British Dictionary definitions for abstract expressionism

abstract expressionism

noun

a school of painting in New York in the 1940s that combined the spontaneity of expressionism with abstract forms in unpremeditated, apparently random, compositions See also action painting, tachisme

Cultural definitions for abstract expressionism

abstract expressionism

A school of art that flourished primarily from the 1940s to the 1960s, noted for its large-scale, nonrepresentational works by artists such as Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, and Mark Rothko.