Color Field

The color field painting (also: Color Field painting and post- painterly abstraction -, dt Nachmalerische abstraction ) is a form of expression of contemporary art, which is characterized by large, homogeneously filled color fields. This art movement in the mid- 1950s developed in America from the Abstract Expressionism. Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman ( Who's afraid of red, yellow and blue ) and Clyfford Still are important precursors and partly pioneers of this style.

The works are mostly large format. Often the paint is applied without using classical painting materials directly to the (horizontal lying on the ground ) unprimed canvas ( emptied, poured, sprayed ), penetrating directly into the tissue ( Soak - Stain - technology) - quite similar to the coloring of a substance.

The term Color Field painting was coined by the American art critic Clement Greenberg, whose favorite Jules Olitski belonged. Significant representatives of Color Field Painting ( whose main creative periods can be assigned to this flow ) are Morris Louis, Helen Frankenthaler, Jules Olitski, Kenneth Noland, Larry Poons, Sam Gilliam, Gene Davis, Friedel Dzubas, Wolfgang Hollegha, Jack Bush, Walter Darby Bannard, Thomas Downing, Howard Mehring and Paul Reed.

Sources and Literature

• Wilkin, Karen: Color as field. American Painting 1950-1975. With an essay by Carl Belz. . The American Federation of Arts in association with Yale University Press, New York / New Haven 2007 (pdf version, 607 kB)
• Lüdeking, Karl Heinz (ed.): The essence of modernity. Selected essays and criticism of Clement Greenberg. From the American Christopher Hollender. Publisher of Art, Amsterdam / Dresden 1997.
• Schummer, Joachim: Color Field painting as ' pure painting '. The establishment of the art self- criticism in the modernist design. In: Reising, Gert ( ed.), color, fields, Philosophy: An Aesthetic Dialogue. Chorus Verlag, Munich 2000, pp. 23-39. ( (pdf version, 82 kB) )