Franz Kline
Franz Kline (* May 23, 1910 in Wilkes -Barre, Pennsylvania, † 13 May 1962 New York) was an American painter.
Life and work
Franz Kline was one of the leading exponents of Abstract Expressionism in the United States. From 1931 to 1935 he studied at the " School of Fine and Applied Arts ," and at the "University of Boston ." After 1937 began art studies at the " Heatherly School of Fine Arts" in London Kline in 1938 moved to New York and moved into its own studio. Between 1952 and 1954 he was a teacher at various institutions, as at Black Mountain College, the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, and at the Philadelphia Museum School of Art
Stylistically, initially influenced by American Realism with cubist influences, he began in the 1930s with representational views of the city of New York. Inspired by the dynamics, speed and restlessness of urban America, he rose in the abstraction on ever greater canvas. In these works, he said " he was painting experience ." His paintings dissolve towards the end of his artistic activity completely from abstraction towards abstraction and are limited to an extremely small color spectrum with a strong characteristic style and coarse brushwork. An example from this period is the collage with oil paint on paper from 1958, which is without a title ( "Untitled "). Kline is one next to Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning, one of the initiators of the painting of Action Painting.
Franz Kline took part in documenta II (1959) and - posthumously - the documenta III in Kassel in 1964.