Marked by powerful and aggressive gestures, Franz Kline’s paintings from the last decade of his short life are among the most admired of Abstract Expressionist masterworks. C&M Arts will present an exhibition of the works from April 4th through June 7th 2003. Included in this mini-retrospective will be rarely seen paintings such as Diagonal 1952, Rue 1959, and Harleman 1960.
For the decade prior to his death in 1962, Kline’s painting – often dripped and smeared and executed in black and white housepainter’s enamels – defined the gestural originality of Abstract Expressionism. These paintings, alongside analogous work by Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning, have become the canonic works of Abstract Expressionism.
At the very outset of the Fifties, Paul Brach, a preeminent painter / critic of the day, recognized that “…Kline conveys the immense excitement of the single creative act. These are statements of an acute crisis. There is no moderation, no middle ground, no compromise. It is the crisis which must occur when the painter reaches the widest range of vision through the most limited means.”