Color Field Painting
Started: Late 1940s
Ended: Mid 1960s
DO NOT MISS ON
THE ART STORY
 | Abstract Expressionism Movement Page |
 | Action Painting Movement Page |
 | Post-Painterly Abstraction Movement Page |
KEY ARTISTS
 | Mark Rothko Quick View Artist Page |
| Mark Rothko |  |
| Mark Rothko was an Abstract Expressionist painter whose early interest in mythic landscapes gave way to mature works featuring large, hovering blocks of color on colored grounds. Art Story: Mark Rothko Artist Page | ||
 | Clyfford Still Quick View Artist Page |
| Clyfford Still | |
| Clyfford Still was a leading first-generation Abstract Expressionist. His mature works are large-scale paintings with gaping chasms and stains of jagged color, often in dark earth tones. Art Story: Clyfford Still Artist Page | ||
 | Helen Frankenthaler Quick View Artist Page |
| Helen Frankenthaler | |
| Helen Frankenthaler was an American abstract painter in mid-twentieth-century New York. Along with Morris Louis and Kenneth Noland, Frankenthaler is considered a pioneer in the practice of Color Field painting. Art Story: Helen Frankenthaler Artist Page | ||
 | Kenneth Noland Quick View Artist Page |
| Kenneth Noland | |
| Kenneth Noland was an American painter who helped pioneer the Color-field painting movement in the 1960s. His most famous works consist of circular ripples of paint poured directly onto the canvas. Art Story: Kenneth Noland Artist Page | ||
 | Morris Louis Quick View Artist Page |
| Morris Louis | |
| Morris Louis was an American painter and an original member of the so-called Washington Color School. Along with Kenneth Noland, Helen Frankenthaler, and others, Louis pioneered the Color Field school of painting, using a technique of soaking heavy oil paints into unprimed canvases. Louis's paintings in part inspired his friend Clement Greenberg to dub the second-generation Abstract Expressionism artists Post-painterly abstraction. Art Story: Morris Louis Artist Page | ||
 | Barnett Newman Quick View Artist Page |
| Barnett Newman | |
| Barnett Newman was an Abstract Expressonist painter in New York who painted large-scale fields of solid color, interrupted by vertical lines or "zips." His sometimes narrow or boxy canvases, part painting and part sculpture, were influential for Minimalism. Art Story: Barnett Newman Artist Page | ||
"We are creating images whose reality is self-evident and which are devoid of the props and crutches that evoke associations with outmoded images, both sublime and beautiful...The image we produce is the self-evident one of revelation, real and concrete, that can be understood by anyone who will look at it without the nostalgic glasses of history."
Summary of Color Field Painting
Color Field Painting is a tendency within Abstract Expressionism, distinct from gestural abstraction, or Action Painting. It was pioneered in the late 1940s by Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, and Clyfford Still, who were all independently searching for a style of abstraction that might provide a modern, mythic art and express a yearning for transcendence and the infinite. To achieve this they abandoned all suggestions of figuration and instead exploited the expressive power of color by deploying it in large fields that might envelope the viewer when seen at close quarters. Their work inspired much Post-painterly abstraction, particularly that of Helen Frankenthaler, Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland, and Jules Olitski, though for later color field painters, matters of form tended to be more important than mythic content.
Key Ideas
Saying "A painter is a choreographer of space," Barnett Newman invented what he called the "zip," a band of vertical color. As a result, he added to the Color Field Painting movement a new way to experience space.
Important Art and Artists of Color Field Painting | |
  | 1957-D-No. 1 (1957)Artist: Clyfford Still Artwork description & Analysis: There used to be some disagreement over which artist had first arrived at the style of Color Field abstraction. Most now believe that it was Clyfford Still who first did so - and at some remove from those in New York, such as Barnett Newman and Mark Rothko, who were also finding their way to the approach in the late 1940s. In this examplary work Still applied thick portions of color with a palette knife to achieve an effect that evokes a violent sundering in nature. Typically, Still's canvases were covered in rich earthy colors, from edge to edge. Oil on canvas - Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York |
 Artwork Images | No. 2, Green, Red and Blue (1953)Artist: Mark Rothko Artwork description & Analysis: Although Rothko never considered himself a Color Field painter, his signature approach - balancing large portions of washed colors - matches up to critics' understanding of the style. Rothko considered color to be a mere instrument that served a greater purpose. He believed his fields of color were spiritual planes that could tap into our most basic human emotions. For Rothko, color evoked emotion. Therefore each of Rothko's works was intended to evoke different meanings depending on the viewer. In the time No. 2, Green, Red and Blue was made, Rothko was still using lighter tones, but as more years passed and Rothko's mental health increasingly declined, his Color Fields were constituted by somber blacks, blues, and grays. Oil on canvas - Private collection |
 | Mountains and Sea (1952)Artist: Helen Frankenthaler Artwork description & Analysis: Helen Frankenthaler played a crucial role in the evolution of Color Field Painting. Some time in or around 1952, Clement Greenberg invited Morris Louis and Kenneth Noland to pay a visit to Frankenthaler's studio in order to witness her technique of staining untreated canvas with paint. This seminal moment marked a turning point for Abstract Expressionism, and soon this new group of artists were simplifying the painting process by applying large bands (or waves, circles, lines, etc.) of uniform color to the canvas, and Color Field Painting advanced further. Oil and Charcoal on unsized, unprimed canvas - Collection of Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc. (on extended loan to the National Gallery of Art, Washington |
More Color Field Painting Artwork and Analysis:
Content compiled and written by Justin Wolf
Edited and published by The Art Story Contributors
" Movement Overview and Analysis". [Internet]. . TheArtStory.org
Content compiled and written by Justin Wolf
Edited and published by The Art Story Contributors
Available from:
First published on 01 Jul 2009. Updated and modified regularly. 
[Accessed ]
