A major new exhibition brings together for the first time over 150 paintings by an overlooked generation of 80 international women artists.
Whitechapel Gallery presents Action, Gesture, Paint: Women Artists and Global Abstraction 1940-70. The exhibition reaches beyond the predominantly white, male painters whose names are synonymous with the Abstract Expressionism movement, to discover the practices of numerous international women artists working with gestural abstraction in the aftermath of the Second World War.
Laura Smith, Curator, Whitechapel Gallery said:
“Action, Gesture, Paint reveals how these international artists were redefining artistic practice as an immersive arena for action, process and consciousness, drawing on the avant-garde movements of Expressionism and Surrealism. We also see how they endowed the ideas and methodologies of the movement with their own specific cultural, political and subjective dimensions. Their paintings were regarded not as images but as events, and they were an important catalyst for changing ideas around aesthetics, poetry, philosophy and politics in their distinct and particular regions.”
The exhibition’s geographic breadth demonstrates that, while the Abstract Expressionism movement is said to have begun in the USA, artists all over the world were exploring similar themes of materiality, freedom of expression, perception and gesture in the mid-century period, from Art Informel to Arte Povera in Europe, and from calligraphic abstraction in East Asia to experimental, highly political practices in Central and South America, and the Middle East. The exhibition features well-known artists associated with the Abstract Expressionism movement, including American artists Lee Krasner (1908-1984) and Helen Frankenthaler (1928-2011), alongside lesser-known figures such as Mozambican-Italian artist Bertina Lopes (1924-2012) and South Korean artist Wook-kyung Choi (1940-1985). More than half of the works have never before been on public display in the UK.
At a time when the world was processing the anxieties of the Second World War and navigating a backdrop of deeply conflicted political climates, artists from across the world began to express their concerns in a new art that embraced personal and political freedom. The exhibition is arranged thematically, opening with Helen Frankenthaler’s four-metre-long abstract painting April Mood (1974). The opening section examines how artists were exploring the variable physical characteristics of paint, abandoning many of the accepted conventions around structure and composition. Accompanying Frankenthaler in this grouping is an untitled work from the 1960s evoking dissonance and tactility by Wook-kyung Choi, whose work has never before been shown in the UK, where white and blue stripes stage the spontaneous play of acrylic smatterings in green, yellow and red. Gestural abstraction was also beginning to emerge in South American countries as an anti-establishment vehicle of defiance in the face of prevailing social and political realities, and as a signpost of change. On display are two untitled works from 1961 by Marta Minujín (b. 1943, Argentina), who worked on the floor using sand, lacquer, chalk and carpenter’s glue to form highly textured surfaces that, once set, were coated with thick layers of paint.
The exhibition goes on to examine the ways in which artists were using painterly expression to explore themes of mythology and symbolism. Lee Krasner’s work Bald Eagle (1955) returns to Whitechapel Gallery for the first time since her retrospective in 1965. The work describes organic elements in autumnal colours, which, though recognisable, reject assimilation, exploring ideas of metamorphosis and symbolism. Painted one year later in 1956, an intimate untitled work by Iranian artist Behjat Sadr (1924-2009) offers a more solemn experience of these themes, where a linear interplay of oppositional colours emerges from a dark background, evoking a meaningful and personal calligraphy around a central heart of red. Bertina Lopes’ gestural work presents not only Mozambican iconography but also political events. On display are two works from 1969 by Lopes, made after fleeing Mozambique to Portugal and then Rome, as her anti-fascist and anti-colonialist views strengthened, and the political situation in Mozambique became more tumultuous. The American artist Jay DeFeo’s (1929-1989) work was inspired by the decimation of Italian and French populations in the postwar period.
The third grouping brings together works by artists which, through explorations of the self, demonstrate an immediacy, where pure emotion appears to be translated directly onto the canvas. Included is The Illusion of Solidity (c. 1945) by Ukrainian-born artist Janet Sobel (1893-1968), who arguably informed Jackson Pollock’s own approach to dripped compositions.
In the fourth grouping artists whose abstract paintings and gestural brushstrokes had strong associations with dance, music and other forms of performance are brought together.
The final part of the exhibition considers how artists turned to their surroundings and environments as subject matter, including townscapes, seascapes and rural landscapes.
Action, Gesture, Paint:
Women Artists and Global Abstraction 1940-70
9 February – 7 May 2023
Galleries 1,8 & 9
List of exhibited artists: Mary Abbott, Etel Adnan, Maliheh Afnan, Ruth Armer, Gillian Ayres, Ida Barbarigo, Noemí Di Benedetto, Anna-Eva Bergman, Janice Biala, Bernice Bing, Sandra Blow, Dusti Bongé, Chinyee, Wook-kyung Choi, Jay DeFeo, Martha Edelheit, Amaranth Ehrenhalt, Asma Fayoumi, Lilly Fenichel, Perle Fine, Else Fischer-Hansen, Audrey Flack, Elna Fonnesbech-Sandberg, Juana Francés, Helen Frankenthaler, Sonia Gechtoff, Judith Godwin, Gloria Gómez-Sánchez, Elsa Gramcko, Sarah Grilo, Grace Hartigan, Lilian Holt, Buffie Johnson, Yuki Katsura, Helen Khal, Elaine de Kooning, Lee Krasner, Bice Lazzari, Lifang, Bertina Lopes, Margaret Mellis, Marta Minujín, Joan Mitchell, Aiko Miyawaki, Yolanda Mohalyi, Nasreen Mohamedi, Emiko Nakano, Lea Nikel, Tomie Ohtake, Fayga Ostrower, Mercedes Pardo, Charlotte Park, Betty Parsons, Pat Passlof, Alice Rahon, Carol Rama, Marie Raymond, Judit Reigl, Deborah Remington, Britta Ringvall, Erna Rosenstein, Behjat Sadr, Nadia Saikali, Zilia Sánchez, Fanny Sanín, Miriam Schapiro, Sarah Schumann, Ethel Schwabacher, Sonja Sekula, Toko Shinoda, Sylvia Snowden, Janet Sobel, Vivian Springford, Franciszka Themerson, Alma Thomas, Yvonne Thomas, Hedwig Thun, Nína Tryggvadóttir, Elsa Vaudrey, Maria Helena Vieira da Silva, Michael West.
