A collection of essays that discuss abstract expressionist art.

Reissue. Originally published: Ithaca, N.Y. : Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, 1978.

This lavish illustrated volume presents a visual history of Seliger's commitment to biomorphic abstraction and documents his extraordinary career from his auspicious beginnings as the youngest artist exhibiting with the original artisit of the Abstract Expressionist movement, through the development of his signature style of complex and intimate abstractions. 217 colour illustrations

Abstract Expressionism was the defining movement in American art during the years following World War II, making New York City the center of the international art scene. But what the heck did it mean! The drips, the spills, the splashes, the blotches of color, the wild spontaneous energy—signifying what? Abstract Expressionism For Beginners will not only help you understand, but also appreciate the art of some of the most iconic figures in modern art—Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, Helen Frankenthaler, and others. Explore their lives and artistic roots, the heady world of Greenwich Village in the 1940s and 1950s, the influence of jazz, the voices of critics, and the enduring legacy of a uniquely inspired group of artists.

And how are such meanings communicated to the spectator?

Abstract expressionism refers to the non-representational use of form and color as a means of expression that emerged in America in the 1940s. These artists had striven to express pure emotion directly on canvas, via color and texture.

In this original and wide-ranging study, Michael Leja argues that Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and other abstract expressionist artists were part of a culture-wide initiative to reimagine the self.

"In this incisive study, the curator and writer Debra Bricker Balken examines the work of the leading artists associated with Abstract Expressionism, including Willem de Kooning, Lee Krasner, Robert Motherwell, Barnett Newman, Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko. At the same time she examines the myths surrounding the movement, the variation in the motivation and practice of artists grouped by art historians under the same heading, and the role played by critics in the movement's reception, both at the time and up to the present day." "Of equal value to the general reader and the art historical scholar alike, Balken's text is a valuable addition to the literature on one of the most influential of all twentieth-century art movements."--BOOK JACKET.