New York Figurative Expressionism - Categories of Figurative Expressionist Modes

Categories of Figurative Expressionist Modes

  • The figure can refer to an armature or framework on which expressionist canvases are built:

Willem de Kooning, (1904–1997); Jackson Pollock, (1912–1956); Conrad Marca-Relli, (1913–2000)

  • The figure was influenced by Old Master and history painting:

Larry Rivers, (1923–2002); Grace Hartigan (1922 – )

  • Representational portraiture:

Elaine de Kooning, (1918–1989); Balcomb Greene, (1904–1990); Robert De Niro, Sr., (1920–1993); Fairfield Porter, (1907–1975); Gregorio Prestopino, (1907–1984); Lester Johnson, (1919–2010); George McNeil, (1909–1995); and Robert Goodnough, (1917 – ); Irving Kriesberg (1919–2009)

  • ”Allegorical Mythical painting that brought stylistic elements of the German expressionists to the heroic scale of the Abstract expressionists: "

Jan Müller, (1922–1958); Robert Beauchamp, (1923–1995); Nicholas Marsicano, (1914–1991) and Bob Thompson, (1937–1966)

According to Klaus Kertess, during the 1950s the figure in its role as harbinger of conservatism became an obvious target for abstractionist defensiveness—a defensiveness prone to blur the vast distinctions between figurative painters and to exaggerate the difference between the figurative and the nonfigurative. It was not until the late sixties and early seventies that the figure was permitted to return from exile and even to make claims to centrality.

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