**This class is a Hybrid. This section of the class will be taught via Zoom**
Whirling colors, sinuous lines, thick paint--and not a face, a tree, a cow in sight! Is abstraction supposed to be hard--or easy? Where did it come from? Why did it dominate midcentury art? What does it offer to the viewer, or the painter? Explore the mystery and magic of abstract art in this six-session course. We'll look at the beginnings of abstraction in the early 20th century, move on to the heyday of American Abstract Expressionism of the 40s and 50s, and finish by examining the kinds of abstraction produced now.
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Early Abstraction: Turn of the century artists take some bold steps into the beyond. Pablo Picasso, Piet Mondrian, Wassily Kandinsky, Kazimir Malevich, Hilma af Klint, Stuart Davis.
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The Heyday of American Abstraction–the 1940s and 50s: Jackson Pollock, Willem deKooning, Joan Mitchell, Mark Rothko, Helen Frankenthaler, Sam Gilliam.
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Move Over, Big Dogs: Abstraction takes different, quieter forms in the late 50s and after. Agnes Martin, Ellsworth Kelly, Chryssa, Lenore Tawney, Frank Bowling, Frank Stella, Eva Hesse, Dan Flavin.
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California Style: West Coast artists carve their own paths. Stanton MacDonald Wright, Charles Howard, Helen Lundeberg, Clyfford Still, Richard Diebenkorn, Sam Francis, Frank Lobdell, Hassell Smith, Jay deFeo, Sonia Getchoff, Bernice Bing, Leo Valledor, Gordon Onslow Ford, Lee Mullican.
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Desert Transcendentalists:Heat, light, color, space…the perfect setting for abstract forms. Raymond Johnson, Agnes Pelton, Henrietta Shore, Lawren Harris, Michael Heizer, Walter de Maria, Ugo Rondinone, Doug Aitken.
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Contemporary Abstraction: It’s still on the artistic menu. Howardena Pindell, Carmen Herrera, Lygia Clark, Alicia McCarthy, Eamon Ore-Giron, Gerhard Richter, Richard Mayhew, Alma Thomas, Mary Weatherford, Mark Bradford, Etel Adnan, Julie Mehretu.
