Action painting, sometimes called "gestural abstraction", is a style of painting in which paint is spontaneously dribbled, splashed or smeared onto the canvas, rather than being carefully applied. The resulting work often emphasizes the physical act of painting itself as an essential aspect of the finished work or concern of its artist.

Background

The style was widespread from the 1940s until the early 1960s, and is closely associated with abstract expressionism (some critics have used the terms "action painting" and "abstract expressionism" interchangeably). A comparison is often drawn between the American action painting and the French tachisme.

The term was coined by the American critic Harold Rosenberg in 1952, in his essay "The American Action Painters",

and signaled a major shift in the aesthetic perspective of New York School painters and critics. According to Rosenberg the canvas was "an arena in which to act". The actions and means for creating the painting were seen, in action painting, of a higher importance than the result. While abstract expressionists such as Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline and Willem de Kooning had long been outspoken in their view of a painting as an arena within which to come to terms with the act of creation, earlier critics sympathetic to their cause, like Clement Greenberg, focused on their works' "objectness." Clement Greenberg was also an influential critic in action painting, intrigued by the creative struggle, which he claimed was evidenced by the surface of the painting.

Over the next two decades, Rosenberg's redefinition of art as an act rather than an object, as a process rather than a product, was influential, and laid the foundation for a number of major art movements, from Happenings and Fluxus to Conceptual, Performance art, Installation art and Earth Art.

Historical context

It is essential for the understanding of action painting to place it in historical context. The action painting movement took place in the time after World War II ended. With this came a disordered economy and culture in Europe, and in America the government took advantage of their new state of importance. A product of the post-World War II artistic resurgence of expressionism in America and more specifically New York City, action painting developed in an era where quantum mechanics and psychoanalysis were beginning to flourish and were changing people's perception of the physical and psychological world; and civilization's understanding of the world through heightened self-consciousness and awareness.

American action painters pondered the nature of art as well as the reasons for the existence of art often when questioning what the value of action painting is. This was done by the artist painting "unconsciously," and spontaneously, creating a powerful arena of raw emotion and action, in the moment. Action painting was clearly influenced by the surrealist emphasis on automatism which (also) influenced by psychoanalysis claimed a more direct access to the subconscious mind. Important exponents of this concept of art making were the painters Joan Miró and André Masson.

Notable action painters

  • Ana Hatherly
  • Frank Avray Wilson
  • Norman Bluhm
  • James Brooks
  • Nicolas Carone
  • Elaine de Kooning
  • Willem de Kooning
  • John Ferren
  • Perle Fine
  • Sam Francis
  • Michael Goldberg
  • William Green
  • Ismail Gulgee
  • Philip Guston
  • Grace Hartigan
  • Franz Kline
  • Albert Kotin
  • Alfred Leslie
  • Joan Mitchell
  • Joe Stefanelli
  • Jack Tworkov

Exhibitions

  • Action Painting
  • Organized by Ulf Küster. Fondation Beyekerm Basekm Switzerland, January 27–May 12, 2008
  • Action/Abstraction: Pollock, de Kooning, and American Art, 1940–1976
  • Organized by Norman L. Kleeblatt. Jewish Museum, New York, May 4–September 21, 2008