Color as Field: American Painting, 1950-1975

by Karen Wilkin, Carl Belz

Color field painting, which emerged in the United States in the 1950s, is based on radiant, uninflected hues. Exemplified by the work of Helen Frankenthaler, Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland, Jules Olitski, Larry Poons, and Frank Stella, among others, these stunningly beautiful and impressively scaled paintings constitute one of the crowning achievements of postwar American abstract art. Color as Field offers a long-overdue reevaluation of this important aspect of American abstract painting.   The authors examine how color field painting rejects the gestural, layered, and hyper-emotional approach typical of Willem de Kooning and his followers, yet at the same time develops and expands ideas about all-overness and the primacy of color posited by the work of other members of the abstract expressionist generation, such as Adolph Gottlieb, Hans Hofmann, Robert Motherwell, Jackson Pollock, and Mark Rothko.    From the fresh historical standpoint of the 21st century, this fascinating reassessment ranges across the artists’ individual approaches and their commonalities, concluding with insights into the ongoing legacy of post-1970s color field painting among present-day artists.

Genres: Art

128 pages, Hardcover

First published November 29, 2007

About the author

Karen Wilkin (1940 -) is a New York–based independent curator and art critic specializing in 20th-century modernism.

Reviews

[Meredith Wortzel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Concise information about Color Field painting, artists of the movements and its predecessors. The info is a little repetitive at times. The exhibition that this book was written for,however, was truly amazing - one of my all time favorite exhbitions.

[Leslie Clark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful compendium book featuring colorful examples of
abstract color field paintings by deKooning and Frankenthaler et al
and influential abstract expressionists: Motherwell, Pollock and Rothko and more.

[Beverly · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the catalog of a 2007 exhibit that was shown at the American Federation of the Arts in New York. These mid-century artists came later, for the most part, than the abstract expressionists of the 1950s. Karen Wilkin, the curator, gives a wonderful exposition and appreciation of this group.

Their reputation has suffered because they were championed by the hated critic Clement Greenberg. Greenberg called their work post-painterly abstraction in contrast with the painterly work of the abstract expressionist. Their work tends to be impersonal, color based, and focused on the qualities intrinsic to the medium. Wilkin notes that one of the beauties of these paintings is their lack of edges, suggesting infinity.

The artists represented in this exhibit and book are:

Walter Bannard
Jack Bush
Gene Davis
Ronald Davis
Friedel Dzubas
Sam Francis
Helen Frankenthaler
Sam Gilliam
Adolph Gottlieb
Hans Hofmann
Morris Louis
Robert Motherwell
Barnett Newman
Keneth Noland
Jules Olitski
Larry Poons
Mark Rothko
Frank Stella
Clyfford Still

[Terence · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great reproductions and some good writings.