By this time he was included both nationally and internationally in the Americans exhibitions curated by Dorothy C. While the contemporary critics often denounced this new appearance of color as a risky move, there is no doubt that Kline’s career was undoubtedly on the rise. From his figurative work in 1930s and 1940s through to his biomorphic paintings and into his artistic maturity, Kline produced chromatic abstractions with the force and engagement of a committed colorist. While Kline reputedly had color on his palette when working on his stark black and white paintings, colored canvases too filled his closets and lined the walls of his studio. Marking a pivotal moment in Kline’s career, the reintroduction of color-usually bright and unmodulated-undeniably works against the received opinion that white and black dominated the artist’s interests. Gaugh, The Vital Gesture: Franz Kline, exh, cat., Cincinnati Art Museum, 1985). Other canvases with significant color only allude to figures, and these are relatively few” (H. Important as one of his most accomplished color works, it is also his only mature color painting to declare openly a figural identity. Singled out by historian Harry Gaugh in the first full-length study on the artist, Gaugh attests: “The massive King Oliver, a cacophony of slatted and buckling color, stands as a joyous monument to the great jazz musician, affirming at the same time the range of Kline’s figural implications. A totemic and empowered action painting, the monumentality and energy of Kline’s signature black and white brushstrokes burst from the canvas as the rare addition of vibrant yellow, red, blue, green and purple pigments permeate the work with the distinguished mark of a master colorist. A complete embodiment of the energy, drama and freedom of this seminal decade in the history of American Art, the surfaces of Kline’s paintings clearly demonstrate the importance of the moment, of the gesture and of the artist’s own vigorous movements, putting brush to canvas.Ī brilliant and complex fusion of strokes and pigments, Kline’s King Oliver emerges as a blaze of inspiration garnered from the free-improvisational and vivacious spirit of the 1950s New York urban jazz scene. Channeling various modern elements into a new heroic form of painting, Kline and his contemporaries thrived on the vivacious jazz scene, and like their musical counterparts took an active stance in the improvisational creation of their art. Evoking the fast cars, rising girders and rampant nightlife, Kline’s canvases are emblematic of the vibrant cultural downtown scene of the 1950s. Teeming with the frenetic energy of the buzzing metropolis, Franz Kline’s dynamic paintings emerge as the archetypes of Twentieth Century New York action painting.
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