Post-Painterly Abstraction

Morris Louis, 1960

Post Painterly Abstraction is a term invented by the American art critic Clement Greenberg (1909-1984) for an exhibition of the same name, which called attention to a less energetic and more colorful direction in art. The show took place at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1964 and included 31 artists whose styles differed significantly from Abstract Expressionism. Today, we can divide their work into two general categories: Color Field Painting and Hard-Edge Painting.

Greenberg had perceived that there was a new movement in painting that derived from the abstract expressionism of the 1940s and 1950s but "favored openness or clarity" as opposed to the dense painterly surfaces of that painting style. The 31 artists in the exhibition included Walter Darby Bannard, Jack Bush, Gene Davis, Thomas Downing, Friedel Dzubas,Paul Feeley, Sam Francis, Helen Frankenthaler, Al Held, Ellsworth Kelly, Nicholas Krushenick, Alexander Liberman,Morris Louis, Arthur Fortescue McKay, Howard Mehring, Kenneth Noland, Jules Olitski, Ray Parker, David Simpson, Albert Stadler, Frank Stella, Mason Wells, Emerson Woelffer, and a number of other American and Canadian artists who were becoming well known in the 1960s. Pepe Karmel would call this more impersonal approach "New York Cool," in his 2008 exhibition of the same name at the Grey Art Gallery, New York University.

Among the prior generation of contemporary artists, Barnett Newman has been singled out as one who anticipated "some of the characteristics of post-painterly abstraction."

As painting continued to move in different directions, initially away from abstract expressionism, powered by the spirit of innovation of the time, the term "post-painterly abstraction", which had obtained some currency in the 1960s, was gradually supplanted by minimalism, hard-edge painting, lyrical abstraction, and color field painting. 

Greenberg believed that, during the early 1950s, Abstract Expressionism had degenerated into a weak school, and, in the hands of less talented painters, its innovations had become nothing but empty devices. But he also believed that many artists were advancing in some of Abstract Expressionism's more fruitful directions - principally those allied to color field painting and these were yielding to a range of new tendencies that he described as "post painterly."

Greenberg characterized post-painterly abstraction as linear in design, bright in color, lacking in detail and incident, and open in composition (inclined to lead the eye beyond the limits of the canvas). Most importantly, however, it was anonymous in execution: this reflected the artists' desire to leave behind the grandiose drama and spirituality of Abstract Expressionism.

Jack Bush, 1968

Some critics, including Clement Greenberg and Barbara Rose, remarked on the decorative character of some post-painterly abstraction. In the past, Harold Rosenberghad described failed Abstract Expressionist paintings as "apocalyptic wallpaper," suggesting that decorative qualities were to be avoided. The new tendency suggested a change in attitudes.