Bowdoin College Homepage
Bowdoin College Museum of Art Logo and Wordmark

Advanced Search
Preview image of work. brush and black ink on off-white wove paper,  Untitled 5702

1964.65

Recommend keywords

Help us make our collections more accessible by providing keywords to describe this artwork. The BCMA uses the Getty Art & Architecture Thesaurus to provide consistent keywords. Enter a keyword in the field below and you will be prompted with a list of possible matching AAT preferred terms.

 
 

Untitled

Export record as: Plain text | JSON | CDWA-Lite | VRA Core 4

Artist

Franz Kline (Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, 1910 - 1962, New York City, New York)

Title

Untitled

Creation Date

1955

Century

20th century

Dimensions

19 7/8 in. x 14 7/8 in. (50.48 cm x 37.78 cm)

Object Type

drawing

Creation Place

North America, United States

Medium and Support

brush and black ink on off-white wove paper

Credit Line

Gift of Walter K. Gutman, Class of 1924

Copyright

This artwork may be under copyright. For further information, please consult the Museum’s Copyright Terms and Conditions.

Accession Number

1964.65

Franz Kline belonged to the core of the New York School and helped to make Abstract Expressionism an internationally celebrated phenomenon. This bold, gestural drawing closely relates to Kline’s large-scale paintings that similarly reduce the palette to a stark contrast of black on white. Among his peers, Kline even became known as the “black and white artist.” While his paintings seem spontaneous, they were in fact meticulously composed, often over periods of several months. While painting, Kline looked to his drawings and copied details onto his canvases. This process of deliberation distinguished him among the members of the New York School, “action painters” who suggested to the viewers of their work that artistic production was an outpouring of raw energy.

Keywords: black and white   New York School   action painting   painting   large brushstrokes   Abstract Expressionism   gestural   postwar American art   focus on line