abstract expressionismn.
/ˈabstrakt ᵻkˈsprɛʃn̩ɪz(ə)m/, /ˈabstrakt ɛkˈsprɛʃn̩ɪz(ə)m/, /ˈabstrakt ᵻkˈsprɛʃənɪz(ə)m/, /ˈabstrakt ɛkˈsprɛʃənɪz(ə)m/, U.S. /ˈæbˌstræk(t) ɪkˈsprɛʃəˌnɪz(ə)m/, /ˈæbˌstræk(t) ɛkˈsprɛʃəˌnɪz(ə)m/ Fine Art.
A form of art, typically painting, in which techniques of abstraction are used to convey strong emotional or expressive content; spec. = action painting n. at action n. Compounds 1.Originally used to describe the work of Wassily Kandinsky, but most commonly applied to American painters of the 1940s and 1950s, as Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and Willem de Kooning.
ΘΚΠ
society > leisure > the arts > visual arts > period, movement, or school of art > late 19th and 20th centuries > [noun] > action painting or tachism
abstract expressionism1922
action art1930
action painting1952
tachism1956
art autre1957
1922 Poet Lore Winter 498 Painters like Vassile Kandinski (who introduced Abstract Expressionism into Russia as early as 1909).
1936 Parnassus Apr. 28 The fourth floor is devoted to the non-geometrical abstract stuff:..the movement, ‘abstract expressionism’, from Gauguin to Kandinsky.
1946 R. M. Coates in New Yorker 30 Mar. 83/2 What some people call the spatter-and-daub school of painting and I, more politely, have christened abstract Expressionism.
1952 Amer. Artist Apr. 26 (title) From abstract expressionism to new objectivity.
1957 B. S. Myers Art & Civilization 656 The New York school of Abstract Expressionism led by such artists as Jackson Pollock (1912–1956) and Willem de Kooning (b. 1904).
2008 N.Y. Mag. 4 Feb. 72/1 Pensato combines the gesturalism of action painting, the painterliness of Abstract Expressionism, the blatancy of Pop, and the wild style of graffiti.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2011; most recently modified version published online December 2021).
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n.1922