abstract expressionism

Sometimes Abstract Expressionism

noun

1. a movement in experimental, nonrepresentational painting originating in the U.S. in the 1940s, with sources in earlier movements, and embracing many individual styles marked in common by freedom of technique, a preference for dramatically large canvases, and a desire to give spontaneous expression to the unconscious.

abstract expressionism

noun

1. a school of painting in New York in the 1940s that combined the spontaneity of expressionism with abstract forms in unpremeditated, apparently random, compositions See also action painting tachisme

abstract expressionism

1. A school of art that flourished primarily from the 1940s to the 1960s, noted for its large-scale, nonrepresentational works by artists such as Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, and Mark Rothko.

Other Word Forms

• abstract expressionist noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of abstract expressionism¹

An Americanism dating back to 1950–55