Neo-expressionism
Encyclopedia
Neo-expressionism is a style of modern
painting and sculpture that emerged in the late 1970s and dominated the art market until the mid-1980s. Related to American Lyrical Abstraction
of the 60s and 70s, Bay Area Figurative School
of the 50s and 60s, the continuation of Abstract Expressionism
, New Image Painting and precedents in Pop painting
, it developed as a reaction against the conceptual art
and minimal art of the 1970s. Neo-expressionists returned to portraying recognizable objects, such as the human body (although sometimes in an abstract
manner), in a rough and violently emotional way using vivid colours and banal colour harmonies.
Overtly inspired by the so-called German Expressionist painters--Emil Nolde
, Max Beckmann
, George Grosz
, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
--and other expressionist artists such as James Ensor
and Edvard Munch
. Neo-expressionists were sometimes called Neue Wilden ('The new wild ones'; 'New Fauves' would better meet the meaning of the term). The style emerged internationally and was viewed by many critics such as Achille Bonito Oliva
and Donald Kuspit
as a revival of traditional themes of self-expression in European art after decades of American dominance. The social and economic value of the movement was hotly debated.
Critics such as Benjamin Buchloh, Hal Foster, Craig Owens, and Mira Schor
were highly critical of its relation to the marketability of painting on the rapidly expanding art market, celebrity, the backlash against feminism, anti-intellectualism, and a return to mythic subjects and individualist methods they deemed outmoded. Women were notoriously marginalized in the movement, and painters such as Elizabeth Murray
and Maria Lassnig
were omitted from many of its key exhibitions, most notoriously the 1981 "New Spirit in Painting" exhibition in London which included 38 male painters but no female painters.
Curley, Mallory. A Cookie Mueller Encyclopedia. Randy Press, 2010.
Foster, Hal, "The Expressive Fallacy," Art in America 71 (January 1983): 80-83, 137.
Kuspit, Donald. "Flak from the ‘Radicals’: The American Case Against Current German Painting," in Jack Cowart, ed., Expressions: New Art from Germany. St. Louis: St. Louis Art Museum, 1983.
Kuspit, Donald, A Critical History of 20th Century Art, chapters 8 and 9. Artnet.com, 2006, http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/authors/kuspit1.asp
Lawson, Thomas. "Last Exit: Painting." Artforum 20, no. 2 (October 1981): 40–47.
A New Spirit in Painting. London: Royal Academy of Arts, 1981.
Oliva, Achille Bonito, The International Trans-avantgarde. Milan: Giancarlo Politi, 1982.
Owens, Craig, "Honor, Power, and the Love of Women," Art in America 71 (January 1983): 7-13.
Schor, Mira, "Appropriating Sexuality," M/E/A/N/I/N/G 1 (December 1986).
Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
painting and sculpture that emerged in the late 1970s and dominated the art market until the mid-1980s. Related to American Lyrical Abstraction
Lyrical Abstraction
Lyrical Abstraction is either of two related but distinctly separate trends in Post-war Modernist painting, and a third definition is the usage as a descriptive term. It is a descriptive term characterizing a type of abstract painting related to Abstract Expressionism; in use since the 1940s...
of the 60s and 70s, Bay Area Figurative School
Bay Area Figurative School
The Bay Area Figurative Movement was a mid-20th Century art movement made up of a group of artists in the San Francisco Bay Area who abandoned working in the prevailing style of Abstract Expressionism in favor of a return to figuration in painting during...
of the 50s and 60s, the continuation of Abstract Expressionism
Abstract expressionism
Abstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...
, New Image Painting and precedents in Pop painting
Pop art
Pop art is an art movement that emerged in the mid 1950s in Britain and in the late 1950s in the United States. Pop art challenged tradition by asserting that an artist's use of the mass-produced visual commodities of popular culture is contiguous with the perspective of fine art...
, it developed as a reaction against the conceptual art
Conceptual art
Conceptual art is art in which the concept or idea involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Many of the works, sometimes called installations, of the artist Sol LeWitt may be constructed by anyone simply by following a set of written instructions...
and minimal art of the 1970s. Neo-expressionists returned to portraying recognizable objects, such as the human body (although sometimes in an abstract
Abstract art
Abstract art uses a visual language of form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of perspective and an...
manner), in a rough and violently emotional way using vivid colours and banal colour harmonies.
Overtly inspired by the so-called German Expressionist painters--Emil Nolde
Emil Nolde
Emil Nolde was a German painter and printmaker. He was one of the first Expressionists, a member of Die Brücke, and is considered to be one of the great oil painting and watercolour painters of the 20th century. He is known for his vigorous brushwork and expressive choice of colors...
, Max Beckmann
Max Beckmann
Max Beckmann was a German painter, draftsman, printmaker, sculptor, and writer. Although he is classified as an Expressionist artist, he rejected both the term and the movement...
, George Grosz
George Grosz
Georg Ehrenfried Groß was a German artist known especially for his savagely caricatural drawings of Berlin life in the 1920s...
, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner was a German expressionist painter and printmaker and one of the founders of the artists group Die Brücke or "The Bridge", a key group leading to the foundation of Expressionism in 20th century art. He volunteered for army service in the First World War, but soon suffered a...
--and other expressionist artists such as James Ensor
James Ensor
James Sidney Edouard, Baron Ensor was a Flemish-Belgian painter and printmaker, an important influence on expressionism and surrealism who lived in Ostend for almost his entire life...
and Edvard Munch
Edvard Munch
Edvard Munch was a Norwegian Symbolist painter, printmaker and an important forerunner of expressionist art. His best-known composition, The Scream, is part of a series The Frieze of Life, in which Munch explored the themes of love, fear, death, melancholia, and anxiety.- Childhood :Edvard Munch...
. Neo-expressionists were sometimes called Neue Wilden ('The new wild ones'; 'New Fauves' would better meet the meaning of the term). The style emerged internationally and was viewed by many critics such as Achille Bonito Oliva
Achille Bonito Oliva
Achille Bonito Oliva, is a recognized and respected Italian contemporary art critic, author of many essays on mannerism, and a professor of History of Contemporary Art at La Sapienza University in Rome...
and Donald Kuspit
Donald Kuspit
Donald Kuspit is an American art critic, poet, and Distinguished Professor of art history and philosophy at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and professor of art history at the School of Visual Arts. Kuspit is one of America's most distinguished art critics. He was formerly the A....
as a revival of traditional themes of self-expression in European art after decades of American dominance. The social and economic value of the movement was hotly debated.
Critics such as Benjamin Buchloh, Hal Foster, Craig Owens, and Mira Schor
Mira Schor
Mira Schor is an American artist, writer, editor, and educator, known for her contributions to the critical discourse on the status of painting in contemporary art and culture as well as to feminist art history and criticism.-Early life and education:Mira Schor's parents Ilya and Resia Schor were...
were highly critical of its relation to the marketability of painting on the rapidly expanding art market, celebrity, the backlash against feminism, anti-intellectualism, and a return to mythic subjects and individualist methods they deemed outmoded. Women were notoriously marginalized in the movement, and painters such as Elizabeth Murray
Elizabeth Murray
Elizabeth Murray may refer to:*Lady Elizabeth Murray, daughter of the 2nd Earl of Mansfield*Elizabeth Murray , American artist*Elizabeth Murray, wife of Edward Robbins and great-great grandmother to Franklin D. Roosevelt...
and Maria Lassnig
Maria Lassnig
Maria Lassnig is an Austrian artist. Her paintings are an exploration of the body, a central theme which she calls "body awareness"....
were omitted from many of its key exhibitions, most notoriously the 1981 "New Spirit in Painting" exhibition in London which included 38 male painters but no female painters.
Neo-expressionism around the world
- Germany
- Georg BaselitzGeorg BaselitzGeorg Baselitz is a German painter who studied in the former East Germany, before moving to what was then the country of West Germany...
- Anselm KieferAnselm KieferAnselm Kiefer is a German painter and sculptor. He studied with Joseph Beuys and Peter Dreher during the 1970s. His works incorporate materials such as straw, ash, clay, lead, and shellac...
- Jörg ImmendorffJörg ImmendorffJörg Immendorff was one of the best known contemporary German painters; he was also a sculptor, stage designer and art professor.- Life and work :...
- A.R. Penck
- Markus LüpertzMarkus LüpertzMarkus Lüpertz is a contemporary German painter and sculptor.In the 1960s, Lüpertz worked primarily in Berlin, moving on to take a professorship at Karlsruhe at the Academy of Fine Arts Karlsruhe in the 1970s, then to Düsseldorf where he was for over twenty years director of the Kunstakademie...
- Rainer FettingRainer FettingRainer Fetting is a German painter and sculptor.Rainer Fetting was one of the co-founders and main protagonists of the Galerie am Moritzplatz in Berlin, founded in the late 1970s by a group of young artists from the class of Karl Horst Hödicke at the former Berliner Hochschule für Bildende...
- SaloméSalomé (artist)Salomé is a famed German artist. His paintings are in renowned museums and collections all over the world. Salomé became known as one of the members of the art group Junge Wilde or Neue Wilde...
- Elvira BachElvira BachElvira Bach is a postmodernist German painter known for her colourful images of women. A member of the Junge Wilde art movement, she lives and works in Berlin....
- Peter AngermannPeter AngermannPeter Angermann is a German painter based in Nuremberg.-Education and Career:He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts, Nuremberg and at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and was a student of Joseph Beuys....
- Georg Baselitz
- United States
- Ida ApplebroogIda ApplebroogIda Applebroog is a notable American painter. Her work is included in many public collections in the United States. During the decade of the 1990s, she received multiple honors including the College Art Association Distinguished Art Award for Lifetime Achievement, an Honorary Doctorate of Fine...
- Leonard BaskinLeonard BaskinLeonard Baskin was an American sculptor, book-illustrator, wood-engraver, printmaker, graphic artist, writer and teacher.-Life and work:...
- Philip GustonPhilip GustonPhilip Guston was a notable painter and printmaker in the New York School, which included many of the Abstract expressionists, such as Jackson Pollock and Willem De Kooning...
- Michael HafftkaMichael HafftkaMichael Hafftka is an American figurative expressionist painter living in New York City. Hafftka was born in Manhattan to Eva and Simon Hafftka, European refugees and Holocaust survivors. Raised in the Bronx, he attended public schools and experimented with several creative forms before he...
- Ouattara WattsOuattara WattsOuattara Watts is an Ivorian painter.He was born in 1957, in Abidjan, Ivory Coast.He studied in l’École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris, France....
- Jean-Michel BasquiatJean-Michel BasquiatJean-Michel Basquiat was an American artist. His career in art began as a graffiti artist in New York City in the late 1970s, and in the 1980s produced Neo-expressionist painting.-Early life:...
- Joe BoudreauJoe BoudreauJoe Boudreau is an American artist.Born in Vincennes, Indiana, Boudreau moved with his family to Baltimore, Maryland at the age of seven. It was in Baltimore that he spent most of his formative years and where he resolved to be an artist...
- Chuck ConnellyChuck ConnellyChuck Connelly is an American painter.-Biography:Connelly graduated from the Tyler School of Art in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania in 1977. After graduating Connelly moved from the Philadelphia area to New York City where Robert C...
- Norris EmbryNorris EmbryNorris Embry was an American neo-expressionist artist born on January 14, 1921 in Louisville, Kentucky.He grew up in East Orange, New Jersey outside New York City and Evanston, Illinois in the Chicago area, attending public schools through high school. Later, he studied at St. John's College in...
- Eric FischlEric FischlEric Fischl is an American painter, sculptor and printmaker.-Early life:Fischl was born in New York City and grew up on suburban Long Island; his family moved to Phoenix, Arizona in 1967...
- Leon GolubLeon GolubLeon Golub was an American painter. He was born in Chicago, Illinois, where he also studied, receiving his BA at the University of Chicago in 1942, his BFA and MFA at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1949 and 1950, respectively.He was married to and collaborated with the artist Nancy Spero...
- David SalleDavid SalleDavid Salle is an American painter who helped define postmodern sensibility by combining figuration with a varied pictorial language of multi-imagery...
- Julian SchnabelJulian SchnabelJulian Schnabel is an American artist and filmmaker. In the 1980s, Schnabel received international media attention for his "plate paintings"—large-scale paintings set on broken ceramic plates....
- Elizabeth MurrayElizabeth Murray (artist)Elizabeth Murray was an American painter, printmaker and draughtsman. Her works are in many major public collections, including those of the Solomon R...
- Malcolm MorleyMalcolm MorleyMalcolm Morley is an English artist now living in the United States. He is best known as a photorealist.-Early life:Morley was born in north London. He had a troubled childhood, and did not discover art until serving a three-year stint in Wormwood Scrubs prison...
- Robert ColescottRobert ColescottRobert H. Colescott, was an American painter. He is known for satirical genre and crowd subjects, often conveying his exuberant, comical, or bitter reflections on being African-American. He studied with Fernand Léger in Paris...
- Ursula van Rydingsvard
- Ida Applebroog
- Austria
- Maria LassnigMaria LassnigMaria Lassnig is an Austrian artist. Her paintings are an exploration of the body, a central theme which she calls "body awareness"....
- Maria Lassnig
- France
-
- Raphael Labro
- Rémi Blanchard
- François Boisrond
- Robert CombasRobert CombasRobert Combas is a French painter and sculptor, born May 25, 1957 in Lyon, France and now living and working in Paris.He is widely recognized as a progenitor of the figuration libre movement that began in Paris around 1980 as a reaction to the art establishment in general and minimalism and...
- Hervé Di RosaHervé Di RosaHervé Di Rosa is a French painter.Born in Sète, France, Hervé Di Rosa is a French painter who brings to life the unique characters who populate his work through the making of paintings, sculptures, installations, animation movies, editions, portraying these unique individuals. In America we had...
- Italy
-
- Francesco ClementeFrancesco ClementeFrancesco Clemente is an Italian and American contemporary artist. Influenced by thinkers as diverse as Gregory Bateson, William Blake, Allen Ginsberg, and J Krishnamurti, the art of Francesco Clemente is inclusive and nomadic, crossing many borders, intellectual and geographical.Dividing his time...
- Sandro ChiaSandro ChiaSandro Chia is an Italian painter and sculptor.A native of Florence, he was a key member of the Italian Transavanguardia movement, along with fellow countrymen Francesco Clemente, Mimmo Paladino, Nicola De Maria, and Enzo Cucchi....
- Enzo CucchiEnzo CucchiEnzo Cucchi is an Italian painter. A native of Morro d'Alba, province of Ancona, he was a key member of the Italian Transavanguardia movement, along with fellow countrymen Francesco Clemente, Mimmo Paladino, Nicola De Maria, and Sandro Chia...
- Mimmo PaladinoMimmo PaladinoMimmo Paladino is an Italian sculptor, painter and printmaker.-Paintings and drawing:Mimmo Paladino was born Domenico Paladino in Paduli, Campania, southern Italy...
- Francesco Clemente
- United Kingdom
- David HockneyDavid HockneyDavid Hockney, CH, RA, is an English painter, draughtsman, printmaker, stage designer and photographer, who is based in Bridlington, Yorkshire and Kensington, London....
- Frank AuerbachFrank AuerbachFrank Helmut Auerbach is a painter born in Germany although he has been a naturalised British citizen since 1947.-Biography:Auerbach was born in Berlin, the son of Max Auerbach, a patent lawyer, and Charlotte Nora Burchardt, who had trained as an artist...
- Leon KossoffLeon KossoffLeon Kossoff is a British expressionist painter, known for portraits, life drawings and cityscapes of London, England....
- David Hockney
- IraqIraqIraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
- Ahmed Al SafiAhmed Al SafiAhmed Al Safi , was born in Al Diwaniyah, Iraq in 1971.Al Safi studied sculpture at the Fine Arts Academy in Baghdad.He won the Ismail Fatah Al Turk Prize for young sculptors in 2000....
- Ahmed Al Safi
- Netherlands
- South AfricaSouth AfricaThe Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
- Marlene DumasMarlene DumasMarlene Dumas is a South African born artist and painter who lives and works in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Stressing both the physical reality of the human body and its psychological value, Dumas tends...
- Marlene Dumas
- Spain
- Miquel BarcelóMiquel BarceloMiquel Barceló is a Spanish painter from Felanitx, Majorca.-Career:After having studied at the Arts and Crafts School of Palma for two years, he enrolled at the Fine Arts School of Barcelona in 1974. A year later he returned to Mallorca to participate in the happenings and actions of protest of...
- Miquel Barceló
- VenezuelaVenezuelaVenezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...
- Pedro SandovalPedro SandovalPedro Sandoval , artist, is one of the leading exponents of current Abstract Neo-expressionism.- Biography :Pedro Sandoval was born in Venezuela in 1966. He was a precocious artist, winning when he was 6 years old the award "Young Master of the World" at Osaka...
- Pedro Sandoval
- MexicoMexicoThe United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
- Julio GalánJulio GalánJulio Galán was a Mexican artist and architect.- Biography :Galán was one of Latin America's renowned neo-expressionist painters of the end of the last century and the beginning of this one.. His paintings and collages are full of elements that usually represent his life.Galán started his career...
- Julio Galán
- CubaCubaThe Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
- Pablo CarrenoPablo CarrenoPablo Carreno is an Expressionist artist who was born in 1941 and raised in Havana, Cuba. He emigrated to the United States of America in 1964.-Biography:Pablo Carreno speaks little of his childhood save for his own obsession with drawing and painting...
- Pablo Carreno
- SloveniaSloveniaSlovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...
- Jože Tisnikar
- Denmark
- Anette Abrahamsson
- Peter BondePeter BondePeter Bonde is a former Danish footballer and is currently the assistant manager of the Danish national team.-External links:* at the Danish FA...
- Peter Carlsen
- Claus Carstensen
- Kristian Dahlgård Larsen
- Dorte Dahlin
- Berit Jensen
- Søren Jensen
- Steen Krarup
- Kehnet Nielsen
- Jens Nørregård
- Nina Sten-Knudsen
- CroatiaCroatiaCroatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
- Goran Špoljarević
- Australia
- Davida AllenDavida AllenDavida Frances Allen , is an Australian painter, film maker and writer.-Career:Allen studied under Betty Churcher at the Stuartholme School, Brisbane and later under Roy Churcher at Brisbane Central Technical College...
- Peter BoothPeter BoothPeter Booth is an Australian figurative and a surrealist painter, and one of the key late-20th century Australian artists. His work is characterised by an intense emotional power of often dark narratives, and esoteric symbolism.-Life:Born the son of a steelworker, the industrial surrounds of...
- Kevin ConnorKevin Connor (artist)Kevin Connor , Australian artist who won the Archibald Prize twice; in 1975 for The Hon Sir Frank Kitto, KBE, and in 1977 for Robert Klippel. He won the Sulman Prize in 1991/92 with Najaf June 1991 and again in 1997 with The Man with itchy fingers and other figures Gare du Nord .He won a Harkness...
- Jan Senbergs
- Brett WhiteleyBrett WhiteleyBrett Whiteley, AO was an Australian artist. He is represented in the collections of all the large Australian galleries, and was twice winner of the Archibald Prize...
- Davida Allen
Suggested reading
Buchloh, Benjamin. "Figures of Authority, Ciphers of Regression: Notes on the Return of Representation in European Painting." October 16 (Spring 1981): 39–68.Curley, Mallory. A Cookie Mueller Encyclopedia. Randy Press, 2010.
Foster, Hal, "The Expressive Fallacy," Art in America 71 (January 1983): 80-83, 137.
Kuspit, Donald. "Flak from the ‘Radicals’: The American Case Against Current German Painting," in Jack Cowart, ed., Expressions: New Art from Germany. St. Louis: St. Louis Art Museum, 1983.
Kuspit, Donald, A Critical History of 20th Century Art, chapters 8 and 9. Artnet.com, 2006, http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/authors/kuspit1.asp
Lawson, Thomas. "Last Exit: Painting." Artforum 20, no. 2 (October 1981): 40–47.
A New Spirit in Painting. London: Royal Academy of Arts, 1981.
Oliva, Achille Bonito, The International Trans-avantgarde. Milan: Giancarlo Politi, 1982.
Owens, Craig, "Honor, Power, and the Love of Women," Art in America 71 (January 1983): 7-13.
Schor, Mira, "Appropriating Sexuality," M/E/A/N/I/N/G 1 (December 1986).
External links
- And then it went boom, on the neo-expressionist "Neuen Wilden" artists