The Fear and the Fury - Abstract Expressionism

Overview

What you will study

• In the immediate aftermath of WWII, this was “an age of anxiety”, of improvisational jazz, of Beat poetry – and of ‘Abstract Expressionist’ artists like Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko breaking with American self-doubt about its artistic provincialism and unleashing a new confidence in American painting.

• The movement subsequently laid itself open to waves of criticism with its earnestness, high-mindedness and machismo, but more recently new ways of contextualising Abstract Expressionism have emerged. 
• They range from the reappraisal of the extraordinary contribution by women artists to Abstract Expressionism to an understanding of its gestural painting in the context of related innovations in artistic centres as far apart as Cologne, Copenhagen and Caracas. 

• Exploring these new approaches along with recently discovered archival material, this The Fear and the Fury - Abstract Expressionism course offered by The Courtauld Institute of Art aims to arrive at a fresh perspective on this important movement in modern American art.