The New York School was an informal group of American poets, painters, dancers, and musicians active in the 1950s and 1960s in New York City. They often drew inspiration from surrealism and the contemporary

avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...

art movements, in particular

action painting Action painting, sometimes called "gestural abstraction", is a style of painting in which paint is spontaneously dribbled, splashed or smeared onto the canvas, rather than being carefully applied. The resulting work often emphasizes the physical a ...

, abstract expressionism,

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...

, improvisational theater, experimental music, and the interaction of friends in the New York City art world's vanguard circle.

People

Frank O'Hara Francis Russell "Frank" O'Hara (March 27, 1926 – July 25, 1966) was an American writer, poet, and art critic. A curator at the Museum of Modern Art, O'Hara became prominent in New York City's art world. O'Hara is regarded as a leading figure i ...

was at the center of the group before his death in 1966. Because of his numerous friendships and his post as a curator at the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

, he provided connections between the poets and painters such as

Jane Freilicher Jane Freilicher (November 19, 1924 – December 9, 2014) was an American representational painter of urban and country scenes from her homes in lower Manhattan and Water Mill, Long Island. She was a member of the informal New York School beginni ...

Fairfield Porter Fairfield Porter (June 10, 1907 – September 18, 1975) was an American painter and art critic. He was the fourth of five children of James Porter, an architect, and Ruth Furness Porter, a poet from a literary family. He was the brother of photo ...

, and

Larry Rivers Larry Rivers (born Yitzroch Loiza Grossberg) (1923 – 2002) was an American artist, musician, filmmaker, and occasional actor. Considered by many scholars to be the "Godfather" and "Grandfather" of Pop art, he was one of the first artists ...

(who was O'Hara's lover). There were many joint works and collaborations, particularly between poets such as O'Hara,

Kenneth Koch Kenneth Koch ( ; 27 February 1925 – 6 July 2002) was an American poet, playwright, and professor, active from the 1950s until his death at age 77. He was a prominent poet of the New York School of poetry. This was a loose group of poets includ ...

, John Ashbery, and

James Schuyler James Marcus Schuyler (November 9, 1923 – April 12, 1991) was an American poet. His awards include the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his 1980 collection ''The Morning of the Poem''. He was a central figure in the New York School and is of ...

: Rivers inspired a play by Koch, Koch and Ashbery together wrote the poem "A Postcard to Popeye", Ashbery and Schuyler wrote the novel ''A Nest of Ninnies'', and Schuyler collaborated on an

ode An ode (from grc, ᾠδή, ōdḗ) is a type of lyric poetry. Odes are elaborately structured poems praising or glorifying an event or individual, describing nature intellectually as well as emotionally. A classic ode is structured in three majo ...

with O'Hara, whose portrait was painted by Rivers.
Yezzi, David, "Last One Off the Barricade Turn Out the Lights", a review in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' of ''The Last Avant-Garde: The Making of the New York School of Poets, '' by David Lehman, Thursday, January 3, 1999. Ron Padgett, Dick Gallup,

Joe Brainard Joe Brainard (March 11, 1942 – May 25, 1994) was an American artist and writer associated with the New York School. His prodigious and innovative body of work included assemblages, collages, drawing, and painting, as well as designs for book ...

, and Ted Berrigan came to the group from

Tulsa, Oklahoma Tulsa () is the second-largest city in the state of Oklahoma and 47th-most populous city in the United States. The population was 413,066 as of the 2020 census. It is the principal municipality of the Tulsa Metropolitan Area, a region with ...

. Koch, O'Hara, Schuyler, and Ashbery were quite different as poets, but they admired each other and had much in common personally: * Except for Schuyler, all overlapped at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

, * Except for Ashbery, all did military service, * Except for Koch, all reviewed art, * Except for Ashbery, all lived in New York during their formative years as poets. All four were inspired by French Surrealists such as

Raymond Roussel Raymond Roussel (; 20 January 1877 – 14 July 1933) was a French poet, novelist, playwright, musician, and chess enthusiast. Through his novels, poems, and plays he exerted a profound influence on certain groups within 20th century French litera ...

, Pierre Reverdy, and

Guillaume Apollinaire Guillaume Apollinaire) of the Wąż coat of arms. (; 26 August 1880 – 9 November 1918) was a French poet, playwright, short story writer, novelist, and art critic of Polish descent. Apollinaire is considered one of the foremost poets of t ...

David Lehman David Lehman (born June 11, 1948David Lehman
at poets.org) is an American poet, non-fiction writer, and li ...

, in his book on the New York poets, wrote: "They favored wit, humor and the advanced irony of the blague (that is, the insolent prank or jest) in ways more suggestive of

Jasper Johns Jasper Johns (born May 15, 1930) is an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker whose work is associated with abstract expressionism, Neo-Dada, and pop art. He is well known for his depictions of the American flag and other US-related top ...

and Robert Rauschenberg than of the New York School

abstract expressionist Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the ...

painters after whom they were named."

Poetry

Concerning the New York School poets, critics argued that their work was a reaction to the Confessionalist movement in Contemporary Poetry. Their poetic subject matter was often light, violent, or observational, while their writing style was often described as cosmopolitan and world-traveled. The poets often wrote in an immediate and spontaneous manner reminiscent of

stream of consciousness In literary criticism, stream of consciousness is a narrative mode or method that attempts "to depict the multitudinous thoughts and feelings which pass through the mind" of a narrator. The term was coined by Daniel Oliver in 1840 in ''First L ...

writing, often using vivid imagery. They drew on inspiration from Surrealism and the contemporary

art movements, in particular the

of their friends in the New York City art world circle such as

Jackson Pollock Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912August 11, 1956) was an American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. He was widely noticed for his " drip technique" of pouring or splashing liquid household paint onto a hor ...

and

Willem de Kooning Willem de Kooning (; ; April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was a Dutch-American abstract expressionist artist. He was born in Rotterdam and moved to the United States in 1926, becoming an American citizen in 1962. In 1943, he married painter El ...

. Poets often associated with the New York School include John Ashbery,

, Barbara Guest, Ted Berrigan,

Bernadette Mayer Bernadette Mayer (May 12, 1945 – November 22, 2022) was an American poet, writer, and visual artist associated with both the Language poets and the New York School. Early life and education Bernadette Mayer was born in a predominantly Ge ...

Alice Notley Alice Notley (born November 8, 1945) is an American poet. Notley came to prominence as a member of the second generation of the New York School of poetry—although she has always denied being involved with the New York School or any specific mo ...

, Tom Clark, Clark Coolidge, David Shapiro,

Lorenzo Thomas Lorenzo Thomas (October 26, 1804 – March 2, 1875) was a career United States Army officer who was Adjutant General of the Army at the beginning of the American Civil War. After the war, he was appointed temporary Secretary of War by U.S. ...

, Ted Greenwald,

Eileen Myles Eileen Myles (born December 9, 1949) is a LAMBDA Literary Award-winning American poet and writer who has produced more than twenty volumes of poetry, fiction, non-fiction, libretti, plays, and performance pieces over the last three decades. No ...

Kenward Elmslie Kenward Gray Elmslie (April 27, 1929 – June 29, 2022) was an American author, performer, editor and publisher associated with the New York School of poetry. Life and career Kenward Gray Elmslie was born to William and Constance Pulitzer in M ...

, John Giorno, Barbara Barg, Jerome Sala, Elaine Equi, Frank Lima, Ron Padgett,

Lewis Warsh Lewis Warsh (9 November 1944 – 15 November 2020) was an American poet, visual artist, professor, prose writer, editor, and publisher. He was a principal member of the second generation of the New York School poets,; however, he has said that � ...

, Tom Savage and Joseph Ceravolo.

Visual art

The New York School which represented the New York abstract expressionists of the 1950s was documented through a series of artists'

committee A committee or commission is a body of one or more persons subordinate to a deliberative assembly. A committee is not itself considered to be a form of assembly. Usually, the assembly sends matters into a committee as a way to explore them more ...

invitational

exhibitions An exhibition, in the most general sense, is an organized presentation and display of a selection of items. In practice, exhibitions usually occur within a cultural or educational setting such as a museum, art gallery, park, library, exhibitio ...

commencing with the

9th Street Art Exhibition The 9th Street Art Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture is the official title artist Franz Kline hand-lettered onto the poster he designed for the Ninth Street Show (May 21-June 10, 1951).

in 1951 and followed by consecutive exhibitions at the Stable Gallery, NYC: Second Annual Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture, 1953; Third Annual Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture, 1954; Fourth Annual Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture, 1955; Fifth Annual Exhibitions of Painting and Sculpture, 1956 and Sixth New York Artists’ Annual Exhibition, 1957. Included in the New York School were Bradley Walker Tomlin, Robert Goodnough, Rosemarie Beck,

Joan Mitchell Joan Mitchell (February 12, 1925 – October 30, 1992) was an American artist who worked primarily in painting and printmaking, and also used pastel and made other works on paper. She was an active participant in the New York School of artis ...

, and

Philip Guston Philip Guston (born Phillip Goldstein, June 27, 1913 – June 7, 1980), was a Canadian American painter, printmaker, muralist and draftsman. Early in his five decade career, muralist David Siquieros described him as one of "the most promising ...

. Other New York School artists, including those of the 1960s, have included painters Richard Pousette-Dart, Cecile Gray Bazelon,

William Baziotes William Baziotes (June 11, 1912 – June 6, 1963) was an American painter influenced by Surrealism and was a contributor to Abstract Expressionism. Life and career Born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Greek parents Angelos and Stella, ...

Nell Blaine Nell Blair Walden Blaine (July 10, 1922 in Richmond, Virginia – November 14, 1996 in New York City) was an American landscape painter, expressionist, and watercolorist. From Richmond, Virginia, she had most of her career based in New York City ...

, Seymour Boardman,

Ilya Bolotowsky Ilya Bolotowsky (July 1, 1907 – November 22, 1981) was a leading early 20th-century Russian-American painter in abstract styles in New York City. His work, a search for philosophical order through visual expression, embraced cubism and ge ...

, Ernest Briggs, Peter Busa, Lawrence Calcagno, Nicolas Carone,

Nanno de Groot Nanno de Groot (March 23, 1913 – December 26, 1963) was a self-taught artist. He belonged to the group of New York School Abstract expressionist artists of the 1950s. He wrote: In moments of clarity of thought I can sustain the idea that ev ...

, Beauford Delaney,

Lynne Mapp Drexler Lynne Mapp Drexler (May 21, 1928– December 30, 1999) was an American abstract and representational artist, painter and photographer. Early life and education Lynne Drexler was born on May 21, 1928 and raised in the Newport News, Virginia, area. ...

, Edward Dugmore, Amaranth Ehrenhalt, John Ferren, Perle Fine, Karl Hagedorn,

John Hultberg John Hultberg (February 8, 1922 – April 15, 2005) was an American Abstract expressionist and Abstract realist painter. Early in his career he was related to the Bay Area Figurative Movement; he was also a lecturer and playwright. Early life a ...

, Albert Kotin, Clarence Major,

Knox Martin Knox Martin (February 12, 1923 – May 15, 2022) was an American painter, sculptor, and muralist. Born in Barranquilla, Colombia, he studied at the Art Students League of New York from 1946 until 1950. He was one of the leading members of the ...

Hugh Mesibov Hugh Mesibov (December 29, 1916 – March 25, 2016 ) was an American abstract expressionist artist who began his career as a federal artist for the Works Progress Administration during the Great Depression and later became a member of the 10th St ...

, Ray Parker, Misha Reznikoff, William Scharf, Ethel Schwabacher,

Kendall Shaw George Kendall Shaw (March 30, 1924 – October 18, 2019) was an American painter who was based in New Orleans, with a career spanning a number of art styles—ranging from abstract expressionism to pop art to minimalism to pattern and design ...

, Gloria Shapiro, Thomas Sills, Merton Simpson, Hedda Sterne, and Jack Stewart. In addition, painter/sculptors Karel Appel,

Claire Falkenstein Claire Falkenstein (; July 22, 1908 – October 23, 1997) was an American sculptor, painter, printmaker, jewelry designer, and teacher, most renowned for her often large-scale abstract metal and glass public sculptures. Falkenstein was one of Am ...

Betty Parsons Betty Parsons (born Betty Bierne Pierson, January 31, 1900 – July 23, 1982) was an American artist, art dealer, and collector known for her early promotion of Abstract Expressionism. She is regarded as one of the most influential and dynamic f ...

, and Antoni Tàpies are known as members of the New York School.Holland Cotter (July 13, 2005)
"'Betty Parsons and the Women'; An Artist and Dealer and the Women She Promoted"
''The New York Times''.

Galleries

The

Anita Shapolsky Gallery The Anita Shapolsky Gallery is an art gallery that was founded in 1982 by Anita Shapolsky. It is currently located at 152 East 65th Street, on Manhattan's Upper East Side, in New York City. The gallery specializes in 1950s and 1960s abstract e ...

in New York City specializes in 1950s and 1960s New York School art, and exhibits expressionism,

geometric abstraction Geometric abstraction is a form of abstract art based on the use of geometric forms sometimes, though not always, placed in non-illusionistic space and combined into non-objective (non-representational) compositions. Although the genre was popu ...

, and painterly abstraction. It most frequently exhibits works in

oil An oil is any nonpolar chemical substance that is composed primarily of hydrocarbons and is hydrophobic (does not mix with water) & lipophilic (mixes with other oils). Oils are usually flammable and surface active. Most oils are unsaturated ...

and

acrylic Acrylic may refer to: Chemicals and materials * Acrylic acid, the simplest acrylic compound * Acrylate polymer, a group of polymers (plastics) noted for transparency and elasticity * Acrylic resin, a group of related thermoplastic or thermosett ...

, as well as sculpture. The Tibor de Nagy Gallery and

Stable Gallery The Stable Gallery, originally located on West 58th Street in New York City, was founded in 1953 by Eleanor Ward. The Stable Gallery hosted early solo New York exhibitions for artists including Marisol Escobar, Robert Indiana and Andy Warhol. His ...

have also exhibited New York School art, and in 1998, the

Gagosian Gallery Gagosian is a contemporary art gallery owned and directed by Larry Gagosian. The gallery exhibits some of the most influential artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. There are 16 gallery spaces: five in New York City; three in London; two in P ...

also in New York City presented an exhibit of New York School art.

Music

The term also refers to a circle of composers in the 1950s which included John Cage,

Morton Feldman Morton Feldman (January 12, 1926 – September 3, 1987) was an American composer. A major figure in 20th-century classical music, Feldman was a pioneer of indeterminate music, a development associated with the experimental New York School ...

Earle Brown Earle Brown (December 26, 1926 – July 2, 2002) was an American composer who established his own formal and notational systems. Brown was the creator of "open form," a style of musical construction that has influenced many composers since� ...

and Christian Wolff.See David Ni of Music and the Visual Arts, Routledge 2001, pp. 17–56. Their music influenced the music and events of the

Fluxus Fluxus was an international, interdisciplinary community of artists, composers, designers and poets during the 1960s and 1970s who engaged in experimental art performances which emphasized the artistic process over the finished product. Fluxus ...

group, and drew its name from the

Abstract Expressionist Abstract expressionism is a post–World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York City in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put New York at the center of the ...

painters above.

Dance

During the 1960s the

Judson Dance Theater Judson Dance Theater was a collective of dancers, composers, and visual artists who performed at the Judson Memorial Church in Greenwich Village, Manhattan New York City between 1962 and 1964. The artists involved were avant garde experimentalists ...

located at the

Judson Memorial Church The Judson Memorial Church is located on Washington Square South between Thompson Street and Sullivan Street, near Gould Plaza, opposite Washington Square Park, in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of the New York City borough of Manhattan. ...

, New York City, revolutionized

Modern dance Modern dance is a broad genre of western concert or theatrical dance which included dance styles such as ballet, folk, ethnic, religious, and social dancing; and primarily arose out of Europe and the United States in the late 19th and early 20th ...

. Combining in new ways the idea of

Performance art Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...

, radical and new Choreography, sound from

composers, and dancers in collaboration with several New York School Visual artists. The group of artists that formed Judson Dance Theater are considered the founders of

Postmodern dance Postmodern dance is a 20th century concert dance form that came into popularity in the early 1960s. While the term "postmodern" took on a different meaning when used to describe dance, the dance form did take inspiration from the ideologies of th ...

. The theater grew out of a dance composition class taught by Robert Dunn, a musician who had studied with John Cage. The artists involved with Judson Dance Theater were avant-garde experimenatalists who rejected the confines of ballet technique, vocabulary and theory. The first Judson concert took place on July 6, 1962, with dance works presented by Steve Paxton,

Freddie Herko Frederick Charles "Freddie" Herko (February 23, 1936 – October 27, 1964) was an American artist, musician, actor, dancer, choreographer and teacher. Early life Born in New York City, Herko's father was a diner manager and his mother wa ...

, David Gordon, Alex and Deborah Hay, Yvonne Rainer, Elaine Summers, William Davis, and Ruth Emerson. Seminal dance artists that were a part of the Judson Dance Theater include: David Gordon, Steve Paxton,

Yvonne Rainer Yvonne Rainer (born November 24, 1934) is an American dancer, choreographer, and filmmaker, whose work in these disciplines is regarded as challenging and experimental.

Trisha Brown Trisha Brown (November 25, 1936 – March 18, 2017) was an American choreographer and dancer, and one of the founders of the Judson Dance Theater and the postmodern dance movement. Brown’s dance/movement method, with which she and her dancer ...

, Lucinda Childs, Deborah Hay, Elaine Summers, Sally Gross, Aileen Passloff, and

Meredith Monk Meredith Jane Monk (born November 20, 1942) is an American composer, performer, director, vocalist, filmmaker, and choreographer. From the 1960s onwards, Monk has created multi-disciplinary works which combine music, theatre, and dance, recordin ...

. The years 1962 to 1964 are considered the golden age of the Judson Dance Theater. During the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s New York School artists collaborated with several other choreographer / dancers including: Simone Forti, Anna Halprin,

Merce Cunningham Mercier Philip "Merce" Cunningham (April 16, 1919 – July 26, 2009) was an American dancer and choreographer who was at the forefront of American modern dance for more than 50 years. He frequently collaborated with artists of other discipl ...

, Martha Graham, and Paul Taylor.

References

Bibliography

* Philip Pavia; Natalie Edgar
''Club without walls: selection from the Journals of Philip Pavia''
New York: Midmarch Arts, 2007. * Irving Sandler
‘’The New York School: the painters & sculptors of the fifties,’’
New York; London: Harper and Row, 1978. , * Irving Sandler
‘’ The triumph of American painting: a history of abstract expressionism’’
New York; London: Harper and Row, 1977. , * Marika Herskovic
''American Abstract Expressionism of the 1950s An Illustrated Survey,''
(New York School Press, 2003.) * Marika Herskovic
''New York School Abstract Expressionists Artists Choice by Artists,''
(New York School Press, 2000.) * ''Statutes of Liberty, The New York School of Poets'', Geoff Ward, Second Edition, 2001. * '' The New American Poetry, 1945–1960'', Donald Merriam Allen, 1969. * ''An Anthology of New York Poets'', Ron Padgett (ed.) and David Shapiro (ed.), 1970. *

Marjorie Perloff Marjorie Perloff (born September 28, 1931) is an Austrian-born poetry scholar and critic in the United States. Early life Perloff was born Gabriele Mintz into a secularized Jewish family in Vienna. The annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany exa ...

, ''Frank O'Hara: Poet Among Painters'',

University of Texas Press The University of Texas Press (or UT Press) is a university press that is part of the University of Texas at Austin. Established in 1950, the Press publishes scholarly books and journals in several areas, including Latin American studies, Texan ...

, 1977. * ''The Last Avant-Garde: The Making of the New York School of Poets'',

David Lehman David Lehman (born June 11, 1948David Lehman
at poets.org) is an American poet, non-fiction writer, and li ...

, 1998. * Maurice Tuchman (ed.), ''The New York School,'' Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1965. * Dore Ashton, ''The New York School: A Cultural Reckoning'', Penguin Books, 1979. * Serge Guilbaut, ''How New York Stole the Idea of Modern Art : Abstract Expressionism, Freedom, and the Cold War,'' Chicago :

University of Chicago Press The University of Chicago Press is the largest and one of the oldest university presses in the United States. It is operated by the University of Chicago and publishes a wide variety of academic titles, including ''The Chicago Manual of Style'', ...

, 1983. {{Authority control Abstract expressionism American contemporary art Modern art Modernism American literary movements Cultural history of New York City Modernist poetry in English American art movements 20th-century American literature