Early in the 1940s, artists in New York began to develop an expressive, abstract style of painting that was a stark departure from previous ideas, both artistically and historically. Up until World War II, the center of artistic production in the West had been Paris, and artists from around Europe, the United States and South America had flocked there to study and to work. This changed profoundly in the 1940s. Inspired in part by the aesthetic vocabulary of Surrealism and a growing interest in psychoanalysis and the unconscious, artists in New York developed bold new practices.
The Yellow X, 1965, Al Held, American, 1928-2005, acrylic on canvas, 144 1/2 Ă 178 in., Seattle Art Museum, Gift of Virginia and Bagley Wright, 2013.11. Courtesy of the Al Held Foundation and Cheim & Read, New York.