Neo-expressionism is a style of
late modernist or early-
postmodern
Postmodernism encompasses a variety of artistic, cultural, and philosophical movements that claim to mark a break from modernism. They have in common the conviction that it is no longer possible to rely upon previous ways of depicting the wo ...
painting and sculpture that emerged in the late 1970s. Neo-expressionists were sometimes called ''
Transavantgarde'', ''
Junge Wilde'' or ''Neue Wilden'' ('The new wild ones'; 'New Fauves' would better meet the meaning of the term). It is characterized by intense subjectivity and rough handling of materials.
Neo-expressionism developed as a reaction against
conceptual art and
minimal art of the 1970s. Neo-expressionists returned to portraying recognizable objects, such as the human body (although sometimes in an
abstract manner), in a rough and violently emotional way, often using vivid colors. It was overtly inspired by
German Expressionist painters, such as
Emil Nolde,
Max Beckmann
Max Carl Friedrich Beckmann (February 12, 1884 – December 27, 1950) was a German painter, drawing, draftsman, printmaker, sculpture, sculptor, and writer. Although he is classified as an Expressionist artist, he rejected both the term and the m ...
,
George Grosz,
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (6 May 1880 – 15 June 1938) was a German Expressionism, expressionist Painting, painter and printmaker and one of the founders of the artists group Die Brücke or "The Bridge", a key group leading to the foundation of Expr ...
,
James Ensor
James Sidney Edouard, Baron Ensor (13 April 1860 – 19 November 1949) was a Belgian painter and printmaker, an important influence on expressionism and surrealism who lived in Ostend for most of his life. He was associated with the artistic ...
and
Edvard Munch
Edvard Munch ( ; ; 12 December 1863 – 23 January 1944) was a Norwegian painter. His 1893 work ''The Scream'' has become one of Western art's most acclaimed images.
His childhood was overshadowed by illness, bereavement and the dread of inher ...
. It is also related to American
lyrical abstraction
Lyrical abstraction arose from either of two related but distinct art movement, trends in Post-war Modernist painting:
* European ''Abstraction Lyrique'': a movement that emerged in Paris, with the French art critic Jean José Marchand being cr ...
painting of the 1960s and 1970s,
the Hairy Who movement in Chicago, the
Bay Area Figurative School of the 1950s and 1960s, the continuation of
abstract expressionism
Abstract expressionism in the United States emerged as a distinct art movement in the aftermath of World War II and gained mainstream acceptance in the 1950s, a shift from the American social realism of the 1930s influenced by the Great Depressi ...
, precedents in
Pop Painting, and New Image Painting: a vague late 1970s term applied to painters who employed a strident figurative style with cartoon-like imagery and abrasive handling owing something to neo-expressionism. The New Image Painting term was given currency by a 1978 exhibition entitled ''New Image Painting'' held at the
Whitney Museum.
Critical reception
Neo-expressionism dominated the art market until the mid-1980s. The style emerged internationally and was viewed by many critics, such as
Achille Bonito Oliva and
Donald Kuspit, as a revival of traditional themes of self-expression in European art after decades of American dominance. The social and economic value of the movement was hotly debated.
From the point of view of the history of
Modern Art
Modern art includes artistic work produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the styles and philosophies of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the tradit ...
, art critic
Robert Hughes dismissed neo-expressionist painting as retrograde, as a failure of radical imagination, and as a lamentable capitulation to the
art market.
Critics such as
Benjamin Buchloh,
Hal Foster,
Craig Owens, and
Mira Schor were highly critical of its relation to the marketability of painting on the rapidly expanding art market, celebrity, the
backlash against feminism,
anti-intellectualism
Anti-intellectualism is hostility to and mistrust of intellect, intellectuals, and intellectualism, commonly expressed as deprecation of education and philosophy and the dismissal of art, literature, history, and science as impractical, politica ...
, and a return to mythic subjects and individualist methods they deemed outmoded.
Women were notoriously marginalized in the movement, and painters such as
Elizabeth Murray and
Maria Lassnig were omitted from many of its key exhibitions, most notoriously the 1981 ''New Spirit in Painting'' exhibition in London which included 38 male painters but no female painters.
Neo-expressionism around the world
The movement became known as
Transavanguardia in Italy and
Neue Wilden in Germany, and the group
Figuration Libre was formed in France in 1981.
In Toronto, the group known as
ChromaZone/Chromatique Collective was formed in 1981 and existed till 1986.
Key neo-expressionist painters
*
Georg Baselitz
Georg Baselitz (born 23 January 1938) is a German Painting, painter, Sculpture, sculptor and Graphic arts, graphic artist. In the 1960s he became well known for his Figurative art, figurative, expressive paintings. In 1969 he began painting his ...
*
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Jean-Michel Basquiat (; December 22, 1960 – August 12, 1988) was an American artist who rose to success during the 1980s as part of the neo-expressionism movement.
Basquiat first achieved notoriety in the late 1970s as part of the graffiti ...
*
Sandro Chia
*
Enzo Cucchi
*
Francesco Clemente
*
Eric Fischl
*
Philip Guston
*
Anselm Kiefer
Anselm Kiefer (born 8 March 1945) is a German painter and sculptor. He studied with Peter Dreher and Horst Antes at the end of the 1960s. His works incorporate materials such as straw, ash, clay, lead, and shellac. The poems of Paul Celan h ...
*
Robert Longo
*
Rick Prol
*
Julian Schnabel
Julian Schnabel (born October 26, 1951) is an American painter and filmmaker. In the 1980s, he received international attention for his "plate paintings"—with broken ceramic plates set onto large-scale paintings. Since the 1990s, he has been a ...
See also
*
Abstract expressionism
Abstract expressionism in the United States emerged as a distinct art movement in the aftermath of World War II and gained mainstream acceptance in the 1950s, a shift from the American social realism of the 1930s influenced by the Great Depressi ...
*
Black Abstractionism
*
Expressionism
Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it rad ...
*
Postmodernism
Postmodernism encompasses a variety of artistic, Culture, cultural, and philosophical movements that claim to mark a break from modernism. They have in common the conviction that it is no longer possible to rely upon previous ways of depicting ...
*
Postmodern art
Postmodern art is a body of art movements that sought to contradict some aspects of modernism or some aspects that emerged or developed in its aftermath. In general, movements such as intermedia, installation art, conceptual art and multimedia, ...
*
New European Painting
References
External links
{{Authority control
Contemporary art movements
Expressionism
Modern art
Postmodern art
1970s in art