I have a novice and recent fascination with Franz Kline and American Abstract Expressionism. While I was always drawn to their work through more pop visible figures in the movement, like fellow action painter Jackson Pollack, I had never taken the deep dive. Kline's work plays to a unique aspect of my obsessive nature, as well as my intrigue with lines and space and how they intersect. I have a parallel visceral draw to Clyfford Still's paintings, particularly ones in which the "life line" is in balance and easily visible. A force unto himself, and not necessarily an action painter, Still was an integral figure in the movement. I can look thru endless images of both artists that I fully appreciate, in search of that one that feels just right, and it changes each time. Clyfford Still, Willem de Kooning and Franz Kline, as well as other abstract expressionists, have been a natural and inspiring exploration. I hope the same for some of you.
"Franz Kline’s large-scale canvases, which feature muscular, calligraphic bolts of black paint over white fields, have become icons of mid-20th-century Abstract Expressionism. Kline helped pioneer the movement alongside artists including Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Joan Mitchell."
Franz Kline Paintings:
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| Untitled (1950) |
"...you paint the way you have to in order to give, that's life itself, and someone will look and say it is the product of knowing, but it has nothing to do with knowing, it has to do with giving." ~Franz Kline
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