Abstract Art Artists

Abstract Art Artists Related Information:

Most of the art till the end of the 19 th century was representational art, which focused on portraying images that were real and often so life-like as to seem like a photograph. Sometime during the last few decades of the 19 th century, there was an increasing need amongst artists to create something different that not only depicted images but also revealed their feeling and emotions; at the same time evoking emotions from the viewer. Thus began the transition from representational art to abstract art and the emergence of Abstract Art Artists.

Famous Abstract Art Artists

Here are some abstract art artists who have made Abstract Art a popular form of art over the years:

Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944): This artist was the first important abstract art artist. He is regarded as the founder of non-representational art. Wassily Kandinsky was born in 1866 in Moscow. He grew up learning to play the piano and the cello. In 1895 Kandinsky saw some paintings of Monet and others, and would later describe how he thought that artists should not do paintings in a manner that was difficult to understand. In 1896, he joined the Academy of Fine Arts for four years until 1900. From 1910 to 1914, Kandinsky painted many paintings which were called ‘Improvisations and Compositions’. His work was a great inspiration to other artists and helped to start different movements in abstract art.

Jackson Pollock (1912 - 1956): Jackson Pollock was a great American abstract art artist. He grew up on the west coast of America and was greatly influenced by the Native American and Mexican cultures in his region. The impetuous styles of Benton and the Regionalists also had a hand in influencing Jackson Pollock’s work. He used to paint in the Surrealist style, spontaneously and so as to convey subliminal feelings and emotions. Pollock’s art was highly misunderstood and due to the fact that he was becoming an alcoholic, he was pushed into loneliness until 1947, the year in which he established his ‘drip’ method of painting. The procedure of dripping paint right from a can onto the canvas made Pollock very famous. In 1956, he met with an auto accident, which proved to be fatal.

Arshile Gorky (1904 - 1948): Arshile Gorky was born in Turkish Armenia but ran away from the genocide in his country at the time of World War I and came to the United States when he was only 16 years of age. Gorky’s mother was unfortunately not as lucky as him and did not survive the genocide, which had a significant impact on many of the artist’s works. Arshile Gorky initially created in the style of Miro, Cézanne, and Picasso but subsequently moved on to bio-morphism and Surrealism. Towards the end of his career, he had developed a distinctive approach to his paintings, which were in true Abstract Expressionist style.

Mark Rothko (1903 - 1970): This artist was born in Dvinsk, Russia as a Marcus Rothkovitch but shortened his name to Mark Rothko when he moved to the United States at the age of ten. Rothko enrolled himself at Yale University and also studied at the Art Students League in New York. His painting style was established slowly in the course of many years which he spent teaching art to students for a livelihood. His original paintings were Expressionist portraits and city landscapes but he later went on to painting in the Surrealist style after witnessing and being inspired by Arshile Gorky’s work. Rothko started painting color-field pieces in 1947, which brought him great fame. Even this success as an artist did not stop him from becoming depressed and turning to alcohol, which ultimately led to him taking his own life in 1970.

Other famous abstract art artists include:

Franz Kline
William de Kooning
Guston Philip
Kenneth Noland
Scott William
Mark Tobey