Abstract expressionism

It came into existence because I had to paint it. Any attempt on my part to say something about it, to attempt explanation of the inexplicable, could only destroy it.

— Abstract expressionism

When I am 'in' my painting, I am not aware of what I'm doing. It is only after a short of 'get acquainted' period that I see what I have been about. I have no fears about making changes, destroying the image, etc., because the painting has a life of its own. I try to let it come through. It is only when I lose contact with the painting that the result is a mess. Otherwise there is pure harmony, an easy give and take, and the painting comes out well..

— Abstract expressionism

Jackson has broken the ice for us.

— Abstract expressionism

The texture of experience is prior to everything else.

— Abstract expressionism

The progression of a painter's work, as it travels in time from point to point, will be toward clarity: toward the elimination of all obstacles between the painter and the idea, and between the idea and the observer. As examples of such obstacles, I give (among others) memory, history or geometry, which are swamps of generalization from which one might pull out parodies of ideas (which are ghosts) but never an idea in itself. To achieve this clarity is, inevitably, to be understood.

— Abstract expressionism

It is disastrous to name ourselves.

— Abstract expressionism

I am always in the picture somewhere. The amount of space I use I am always in, I seem to move around in it. And there seems to be a time when I lose sight of what I wanted to do, and then I am out of it. If the picture has a countenance I keep it. If it hasn't, I throw it away.

— Abstract expressionism

Painting is aesthetic enjoyment; I want to be a 'poet'. As an artist I must conform to my nature. My nature has a lyrical as well as a dramatic disposition. Not one day is the same. One day I feel wonderful to work and I feel an expression, which shows in the work. Only with a very clear mind on a clear day I can paint without interruptions and without food because my disposition is like that. My work should reflect my moods and the greatest enjoyment I had when I did the work.

— Abstract expressionism

Hans Hofmann (1950), in 'Artists' Session at Studio 35'; as quoted in Abstract Expressionism Creators and Critics, ed. Clifford Ross, Abrams Publishers New York 1990, p. 225

— Abstract expressionism

The modern artist is living in a mechanical age and we have a mechanical means of representing objects in nature such as the camera and photograph. The modern artist, it seems to me, is working and expressing an inner world – in other words – expressing the energy, the motion and the other inner forces.. ..the modern artist is working with space and time, and expressing his feelings rather than illustrating..

— Abstract expressionism

..with experience it seems to be possible to control the flow of paint, to a great extent, and I don't use – I don't use the accident – 'cause I deny the accident.. ..it's quite different from working, say, from a still life where you set up objects and work directly from them. I do have a general notion of what I'm about and what the results will be. I approach painting in the same sense as one approaches drawing, that is, it's direct..

— Abstract expressionism

Abstract painting is abstract. It confronts you. There was a reviewer a while back who wrote that my pictures didn't have any beginning or any end. He didn't meant it as a compliment, but it was. It was a fine compliment. Only he didn't know it.

— Abstract expressionism

We are getting mixed up with the French tradition. In talking about the necessity to 'finish' a thing, we then said American painters 'finish' a thing that looks 'unfinished', and the French, they 'finish' it. I have seen Henri Matisse's that were more 'unfinished' and yet more 'finished' than any American painters. Matisse was obviously in a terrific emotion at the time and he was more 'unfinished' than 'finished'.

— Abstract expressionism

The thing that interests me is that today painters do not have to go to a subject-matter outside themselves. Modern painters work in a different way. They work from within. [1951, radio interview]

— Abstract expressionism

The eye seems to be responding to something living.

— Abstract expressionism

I don't care for 'abstract expressionism'.. ..and it is certainly not 'non-objective', and not 'non-representational' either. I'm very representational some of the time, and a little all of the time. But when you're painting out of your consciousness, figures are bound to emerge. We're all of us influenced by Freud, I guess. I've been a Jungian for a long time.. .Painting is a state of being.. .Painting is self-discovery. Every good artist paints what he is.

— Abstract expressionism

The artist's tool or the traditional artist's brush and maybe even oil paint are all disappearing very quickly. We use mostly commercial paint, and we generally tend toward lager brushes. In a way, 'Abstract Expressionism' started this all. De Kooning used house painter's brushes and house painters' techniques.

— Abstract expressionism

One could stand in front of any Abstract Expressionist work for a long time, and walk back and forth, and inspect the depths of the pigment and the inflection and all the painterly brushwork for hours. But I wouldn't particularly want to do that and also I wouldn't ask anyone to do that in front of my paintings. To go further, I would like to prohibit them from doing that in front of my painting. That's why I make the paintings the way they are, more or less.

— Abstract expressionism

The best works are often those with the fewest and simplest elements.. ..until you look at them a little more, and things start to happen.

— Abstract expressionism

It was Elaine de Kooning who perhaps best described the nature of Abstract Expressionism when she wrote: 'The main difference, then, between abstract and non-abstract art is that the abstract artists does not have to choose a subject. But whether or not he chooses, he always ends up with one.'

— Abstract expressionism

'We agree only to disagree.'According to Irvin Sandler, writer and observer of the art scene, this was the unwritten motto of that loose grouping of artists in New York in the 1940s and 50s who are generally known as 'Abstract Expressionists' or 'the first generation of the New York School'.

— Abstract expressionism

Surrealism was one of the influential trends with which American artists were coming to terms, in particular, when the coming to-power of the National Socialists in Germany and the outbreak of the second World War forced numerous exponents of the surrealist movement to emigrate to the United States.

— Abstract expressionism

In his [ Clement Greenberg's essay 'After Abstract Expressionism'.. ..he listed the characteristics of 1950's gestural abstraction [in America], not only to describe them but also to underline how this approach differed from the crisp geometric efforts of the American 'non-objective' artists of the 1930s and the lean, color-based compositions of the painters Color Field who rose to prominence in the 1960's.

— Abstract expressionism

'Notes on Color Field Painting', Karen Wilkin, as cited in Color as Field – American Painting 1950 – 1975, American Federations of Art, in ass. With Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2007, p. 11

— Abstract expressionism