Book Description

This beautifully illustrated volume spans the years 1950 to 1990, one of the most fertile periods in the history of abstraction. These four decades witnessed intense debates about the ambitions and prerogatives of abstract painting. At the forefront of such conversations were the artists featured in Rothko to Richter. Associated with movements as diverse as Expressionism, Color Field, and Minimalism, each artist sought to expand the possibilities of abstraction, particularly at the level of technique. They experimented liberally with process, pioneering new ways to apply paint that alternately accentuated or suppressed traces of the artist's touch. Rothko to Richter features twenty-seven paintings selected from an extraordinary private collection. Created by artists as diverse as Karel Appel, Willem de Kooning, Helen Frankenthaler, Jack Goldstein, Hans Hofmann, Morris Louis, Joan Mitchell, Robert Motherwell, and Frank Stella, the works communicate the changing priorities of abstract art after World War II. Looking closely at innovations in mark-making, the catalogue explores the fate of the terms "abstraction" and "expressionism" as well as the impact of mass media, technology, and photomechanical reproduction on abstract painting. The book's critical analyses are complemented by a poetic meditation on color, sea, and sky that addresses abstraction as a mode of expression.