A Marathon Read!

"Mountains and Sea"
Oil and charcoal on unsized, unprimed canvas, 86 1/2 x 117 1/4 inches
Helen Frankenthaler, 1952

I just finished reading Mary Gabriel's HUGE tome, Ninth Street Women, about five painters who were key players in  the Abstract Expressionist movement. The book weighs in at  926 pages (small print too!), but 165 pages are footnotes and a bibliography. Let's just say the book is well researched. The painters in question are Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell and Helen Frankenthaler. The book tells their stories, starting with early days of grinding poverty, when they sacrificed all to forge forward with a new way of painting. Ultimately the painters found fame and fortune, but not without a cost. 

"Milkweed"
Oil paper-and-canvas collage on canvas
Framed 84 x 59 inches
Lee Krasner, 1955

Abstract Expressionism was born in New York in the 1940's. It placed New York on the cutting edge of the world art scene. The abstract artists "did not want their work to tell a story, but for their paintings to be appreciated as painting, the way a concerto is appreciated for its sound."  It's quite beyond the scope of this post, and probably beyond my understanding, to describe Abstract Expressionism in detail. But I wanted to share some favorite quotations from the book. Reading about the lives and struggles of these artists was instructive, and these are quotes that can speak to us all. Enjoy!

"Artists should only allow themselves

to be influenced

by the greatest artists"

--Attributed to Malcom Hackett,

art teacher of Joan Mitchell

"City Landscape"
Oil on Canvas, 80 x 80 inches
Joan Mitchell, 1953

"[For the viewer] to be astonished 

takes only a second,

but the artist who produced the painting

had worked long and hard."

--Mary Gabriel

"Your best work

is what you think

is the worst."

--Attributed to Elaine de Kooning

"Leo Castelli"
Oil on Canvas, 54 x 30 1/2 inches
Elaine de Kooning, 1953

"Many artists have a subject

to which they return

time and time again,

because the familiarity frees them

to concentrate on the act of painting."

--Mary Gabriel

"The secret ingredient

of great art

is what is most difficult to learn:

it is courage."

--Boris Lurie

"The Persian Jacket"
Oil on Canvas, 57 1/2 x 48 inches
Grace Hartigan, 1952

"In the course of an artist's life,

a 'certain magic' happens once,

maybe twice,

which produces a breakthrough."

--Helen Frankenthaler

"For an artist, 

satisfaction is antithetical to creation."

--Mary Gabriel