Movements in Twentieth-Century Art After World War II  Abstract
Expressionism  (Action Painting and Color Field Painting)  Name:
Term used as early as 1920s to describe Kandinsky's abstract
paintings. Writer Robert Coates first uses the term for
contemporary paintings in the March 30, 1946 issue of the New
Yorker. Supportive critic Harold Rosenberg used the term "Action
Painting," while another critic, Clement Greenberg, preferred
"American-style Painting." Still, "Abstract Expressionism" was
the term used most frequently in the U.S. Who: Jackson Pollock,
Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning, Lee Krasner, Adolph Gottlieb,
Arshile Gorky, Robert Motherwell, Franz Kline, Barnett Newman,
and Clyfford Still. When: Mid-1940s through 1950s. Where: United
States (New York City). What: Consciously American style of art
that influenced similar European movements, such as Tachisme.
Abstract Expressionism can be broken into two large
subdivisions: Action Painting, which came first, and Color Field
Painting. Action Paintings ge