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.

Origin of abstract expressionism

1
An Americanism dating back to 1950–55
  • Sometimes Abstract Expressionism .

Other words from abstract expressionism

  • abstract expressionist, noun

Words Nearby abstract expressionism

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

How to use abstract expressionism in a sentence

  • “Jasper and I used to start each day by having to move out from abstract expressionism,” Rauschenberg once said.

    The Art of Gay Cool | Brad Gooch | February 7, 2009 | THE DAILY BEAST

British Dictionary definitions for abstract expressionism

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

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Cultural definitions for abstract expressionism

abstract expressionism

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.

The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.