In case you missed the Royal Academy of Arts Autumn blockbuster exhibition Abstract Expressionism or you want to re-live it, here is a 360 degree tour of the show.
Abstract Expressionism will forever be associated with the energy and vibrancy of 1950s New York. Artists like Pollock, Rothko and de Kooning injected a new sense of confidence in painting, experimenting with improvisation, spontaneity and colour.
This ambitious and long overdue exhibition brought together some of the finest works associated with the movement from around the world.
London has seen retrospectives of the most famous proponents of Abstract Expressionism over the decades, but this is the first time since 1959 that the movement as a whole was represented in one landmark show. The exhibition included works by Kline, Pollock, Rothko, Newman, Still, de Kooning, Smith, Reinhardt and Gorky as well as work by lesser-known – but no less influential – artists to reveal the extraordinary breadth of a movement that gave New York City an artistic identity for the first time.
Here is a sample from Edward Lucie-Smith’s review of the exhibition:
The new Abstract Expressionism show that just opened in the main galleries of the Royal Academy at Burlington House, is an absolutely splendid affair. If you can only see one exhibition during a day out in London, see this one, and leave Tate Modern on the other side of the Thames to its own populist devices. The range and quality of the loans are astonishing.
The show at the R.A. is exhilarating
It establishes without a doubt, if any effort to accomplish this is still needed, that that Abstract Expressionist movement in America was a game-changer. It completely altered the cultural landscape. Up till its appearance, the Modern Movement in art had been comfortably Euro-centric. This, despite the various catastrophes of the first half of the 20th century – World War I, the Russian Revolution (catastrophic in that it led to the suppression of a flourishing avant-garde in Russia), the rise of the Nazi regime in Germany, the Spanish Civil War, and the immense disruption of World War II.
Abstract Expressionism Exhibition in 360˙ Panorama Royal Academy Click And Use Mouse to See Panorama