Post modernism
Art school which rejected Modernism and formal rules in favor of accepting more. It offered something for everyone. Championed by critic Clement Greenberg.
Clement Greenberg
Incredibly influential and powerful critic in the 20th century; suggested art works of realism, or works rooted in images of popular culture, are inferior and depend on elements not essential to painting; avant-garde is high culture and, therefore, superi
Francis Bacon
(1910-1992) British post-modern painter. "Painting
Guerilla Girls
A feminist artist group who called themselves "the conscience of the art world" by calling attention to the injustice of major art institutions in the sexist and racist orientation
Minimal Art
An art movement in sculpture and painting that began in the 1950s and emphasized extreme simplification of form and color
Performance Art
An American avant-garde art trend of the 1960s that made time an integral element of art. It produced works in which movements, gestures, and sounds of persons communicating with an audience replace physical objects. Documentary photographs are generally
Armory Show
1913 - The first art show in the U.S., organized by the Ashcan School. Was most Americans first exposure to European Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art, and caused a modernist revolution in American art. Though it shocked, it was a success.
Neo-Expressionism
This version of Post Modernism explores intensity of emotions, was related to the self-help movement, revisits German Expressionism. Late 20th century.
Pop Art
An American school of the 1950s that imitated the techniques of commercial art (such as Warhol's soup cans or Lichtenstein's comic strips) and the styles of popular culture and the mass media
Op Art
A style of abstraction which captured the spirit of the '60s with fluorescent colors and dizzying optical illusions. Many were or looked as if they were created under the influence of phycadelic drugs. They were especially popular for posters/album covers
Abstract Expressionism
Art style developed in the 1940's using nonrepresentational shapes and colors to convey emotions
Gestural Abstraction
Also known as action painting. A kind of abstract painting in which the gesture or act of painting is seen as the subject of the art. Ex: Jackson Pollack's paintings.
Action Painting
Another name for gestural abstraction
Benday dots
A printing technique that involves the modulation of color through the placement of individual colored dots. Named after its inventor, Benjamin Day. Used especially in the art of Roy Lichtenstein
Cindy Sherman
Feminist artist in the 1980s who used her body to attempt to deconstruct feminine streotypes. Did "untitled film stills." Best known for her conceptual portraits.
Kiki Smith
A feminist artist who deals with the objectification of the human body. She trained as an emergency medical technician so most of her early sculptures pertain to bodily organs and bodily fluids.
Jackson Pollack
Painter who spontaneously dripped paint on a canvas. Gestural Abstraction school. Best known for "Autumn Rhythm
Andy Warhol
An American commercial illustrator and artist famous for his Campbell's soup painting. He was the founder of the pop-art movement, which like all other art movements in history reflected something back on the present society.
Judy Chicago
Feminist artist who designed and built the ceramic art for The Dinner Party, which consists of a triangle-shaped table, set with 39 places, 13 on a side, each celebrating a woman who has made an important contribution to world history.
Faith Ringgold
A feminist artist who uses art to explore issues associated with being an African American woman in contemporary America. After her mother's death she created a quilt but the work is political as well as personal.
Louise Nevelson
Female artist who assembled architectural sculptures of "found" wooden objects and used them to construct screens of boxes of varied sizes which she painted in monochromatic colors.
Mark Rothko
United States abstract painter (born in Russia) whose paintings are characterized by horizontal bands of color with indistinct boundaries (1903-1970)
Roy Lichtenstein
A pop artist who excerpted images from comic books using the benday dot system.
Frank Gehry
Living architect who designed the Guggenheim Museum in Spain. He is known for Deconstructivism
Audrey Flack
Female realist who based her work on the Dutch vanitas paintings. They contain many references to death. She projected her images on canvas (like the Dutch used the camera obscura) and used an airbrush, a design tool for illustration.
Keith Haring
Graffiti artist; developed distinctive vocab of cartoon figures; politically creative; made 1000s of chalk drawings "in transit
Robert Rauschenberg
(1925-present) A pop artist who made "combines" by interspersing painted passages with sculptural elements, such as "Canyon" (1959)
Christo
(1935-present) An environmental artist who temporarily modifies landscapes with materials such as cloth (like his "Surrounded Island" (1980-1983) )
Harold Rosenburg
A prominent art critic of the twentieth century who coined the phrase "action painting" to describe the style of the artists of the New York School.
I.M. Pei
Post modernism architect who designed glass pyramid in France at the Louvre, East building of the National Gallery of Art, and the L'enfant Plaza Hotel.
Chuck Close
An American superrealist best known for his large scale portraits, such as "Big Self-Portrait" (!967-1968)
Margaret Bourke White
A photojournalist who depicted the horrors of the Dust Bowl. She was also the first foreign photographer allowed to take pictures of Soviet industry.