Abstract Art

Since the early years of the 20th century, Western abstract art has fascinated, outraged and bewildered audiences. Its path to acceptance within the artistic mainstream was slow. Anna Moszynska traces the origins and evolution of abstract art, placing it in broad cultural context. She examines the pioneering work of Kandinsky, Malevich and Mondrian alongside the Russian Constructivists, the De Stijl group and the Bauhaus artists, contrasting European geometric abstraction in the 1930s and 40s with the emphasis on personal expression after the Second World War. Op, Kinetic and Minimal art of the postwar period is discussed and illustrated in detail, and new chapters bring the account up to date, exploring the crisis in abstraction of the 1980s and its revival in paint, fabric, sculpture and installation in recent decades. The first edition of this book, published in 1990, was acclaimed by reviewers; now in full colour and comprehensively revised, it will serve as the best introduction to abstract art for a new generation.

Table of Contents

Preface 1. Observing the World: Paths to Abstraction 1910 14 2. Looking Inwards: Investigations 1912 20 3. Social Ideals: Constructing the Future 1920 39 4. Abstractions in Europe: 1939 56 5. Focus on Expression: USA 1939 56 6. Objective Approaches: Abstract Art 1956 78 7. Crises in Abstraction: 1979 89 8. Extending the Canon: Diffusions of Identity and Place since the 1990s 9. Abstraction in the Expanded Field