Willem de Kooning began his career as a figure painter and portraitist, but by the 1940s, he became a central figure in the Abstract Expressionist movement. Unlike many of his peers who fully abandoned the figure, de Kooning remained deeply attached to the human form, particularly the female figure.

In Woman and Bicycle (1952–53), de Kooning channels a powerful, almost violent energy through jagged lines, explosive brushwork, and raw, organic forms. The woman’s image is simultaneously fascinating and disturbing—she is a chaotic fusion of sex symbol, fertility goddess, and predatory force, evoking associations that range from erotic to grotesque. His treatment of the female figure spans from satirical to mythic, sometimes bordering on caricature, other times layered with tenderness or menace.

The intensity of expression comes not from clear structure or recognizable forms, but from the frenzied application of paint, with shapes and colors seemingly in conflict. There’s no traditional composition—only a dynamic push and pull of construction and defacement, creation and cancellation. His work reflects a tension between abstraction and figuration, embodying the existential struggle and emotional rawness that defined Abstract Expressionism.

Jackson Pollock pushed the expressive potential of gesture to its furthest limits. Full Fathom Five is one of his earliest and most iconic drip paintings—what critics later called action painting. Pollock laid a large canvas flat on the floor and worked from all sides, dripping, flinging, and pouring paint in rhythmic, physical movements.

While the results may seem chaotic, the process was not entirely random. Pollock embraced chance and accident, but also maintained control over the composition through intuition and a deep awareness of movement and form. The act of painting became a kind of performance—a record of motion, energy, and emotion.

The painting has no central focus, beginning, or end. Instead, the eye moves across a continuous surface of layered lines and textures. This concept of an all-over composition marked a radical break from traditional painting, particularly the Renaissance idea of framed narrative scenes. Here, the painting becomes an immersive environment, pulling the viewer into its web of dynamic gestures and ambiguous space.

Pollock embedded everyday objects—cigarettes, buttons, coins—into the paint surface, further blurring the line between art and life, order and disorder. The result is a work that feels alive with motion, tension, and raw immediacy—a visceral experience rather than a representation.

Mark Rothko represents the other major path taken by the Abstract Expressionists—moving away from explosive gesture toward a meditative, emotional use of color as a primary expressive force. His works are often associated with the Color Field movement, emphasizing vast expanses of luminous color rather than energetic brushwork.

In Blue, Yellow, Green on Red, Rothko presents large, softly edged rectangles that appear to float against a vibrant red background. The shapes have no hard outlines; instead, their blurred edges and translucent layers create a sense of gentle motion and visual depth. The oil paint is thinly layered with subtle tonal shifts, giving the surface a shimmering, cloud-like effect.

Rothko’s goal was not to represent objects or tell stories, but to evoke deep emotional and spiritual responses through pure color. He wanted the viewer to stand close and feel enveloped by the painting, to experience a sense of calm, reflection, and inner intensity. His compositions were designed to absorb the viewer, making the act of looking a meditative, even transcendent, experience.

Excerpt from audio file: "Artist, Jack Whitten:  Each painting comes out of specific experience, with a specific narrative built into it.

 Narrator: For 40 years, Whitten lived in Tribeca, just north of the World Trade Center. He witnessed the Twin Towers being built in the late 1960s. And he was there when the buildings were attacked on September 11, 2001.

Jack Whitten: I was in the street that morning. This plane came right overhead, and when that sound came overhead, you could feel your flesh crawling, I mean, seriously, rippling. We looked up, this plane was right on top of us. At first you didn’t see any flame, any smoke. You just saw this big gap and hole, and the sky was filled with a chandelier of glass. It was later you saw the smoke and the flames. My gut feeling told me that that was not an accident.  This is what I call the particularities of violence—close to 3,000 people were murdered in my neighborhood. People were screaming, crying.

 Narrator:  After that experience, Whitten stopped making art for several years — except for this work, which took him five years to complete. It’s composed of thousands of tiles of acrylic paint infused with materials like ash, dust, and blood.

Jack Whitten: I wanted that painting to be more raw and visceral. A lot of emotional stuff in there. I’ve had people that stand before that painting and cry."

Whitten said, "“Abstraction, as we know it, can be directed towards the specifics of subject—a person, a thing, an experience. My goal is to use painting to build abstraction as a symbol.”

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This deeply reflective work commemorates the tragic mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14, 2012. Unlike many of Whitten’s more energetic and experimental compositions, Sandbox is subdued and contemplative in tone. As the title implies, it evokes the innocence of childhood through the suggestion of toys scattered in a sandbox.

This piece marks another evolution in Whitten’s treatment of figure and ground. Instead of using his signature acrylic “tiles” or thick slabs of acrylic as the base, the ground here is a painted surface. Like in Nine Cosmic CDs, Whitten incorporates “ready-nows”—found or pre-formed objects—though here they function in a more representational and symbolic way.

Whitten once wrote, “I have always accepted memory as being one of the most powerful elements of human consciousness. Through memory we reconstruct our past. We honor the dead through memory.” With this statement, Sandbox becomes more than a memorial—it is a space where memory and grief meet the residue of lost innocence. The objects within it, reminiscent of children’s toys, speak to lives interrupted and the quiet pain that endures in the aftermath.

Jasper Johns's Target with Four Faces is executed with deliberate precision and neutrality, emphasizing the painting as an object in itself rather than a mere representation of something familiar. Johns uses encaustic—a medium composed of pigment and hot wax—to build a richly textured, tactile surface that distances the work from emotional brushwork or illusionistic space.

The painting’s central motif, a target, is one of what Johns called “things the mind already knows.” By choosing universally recognizable symbols—flags, numbers, maps, and targets—Johns freed himself to explore other layers of meaning beneath surface familiarity. Despite its association with acts of looking, aiming, and aggression, the concentric rings of this target are partially obscured, encouraging the viewer to reflect not on hitting a mark, but on the act of perception itself.

Above the target, four cropped plaster casts of a model’s face, each made at different times, are mounted in non-sequential order behind a hinged wooden lid. The casts are eyeless, silenced and anonymous, adding a sense of unease or psychological distance. The lid suggests the potential to conceal or reveal, reinforcing themes of observation and the tension between public symbols and private meaning.

This work is emblematic of the impersonality and cool detachment that came to define much of the art of the 1960s. Yet, within that coolness, Johns subtly interrogates identity, memory, and the limits of representation.

Jasper Johns’s Flag presents a familiar image—the forty-eight-star American flag in use at the time the work was made—rendered in an unexpectedly tactile and layered medium. Rather than painting on a flat canvas, Johns constructed the piece using three panels of wood covered with newspaper collage, then layered with encaustic, a medium made by mixing pigment with hot wax. The encaustic technique allowed him to preserve the physical texture of brushstrokes, drips, and smears, giving the surface a sculptural presence.

Johns intentionally chose a pre-existing symbol, explaining that using a well-known image “freed me to focus on other ideas,” such as process, perception, and materiality. Beneath the flag’s bold red, white, and blue surface, fragments of newspaper peek through, subtly embedding the work in a specific historical and cultural moment—one that viewers are invited to decipher or question.

While Flag appears direct and patriotic, it resists easy interpretation. It hovers between representation and abstraction, image and object, prompting viewers to reconsider what they think they already know. Is it a flag or a painting of a flag? A patriotic symbol or a formal exploration of color, pattern, and surface? Johns's work thus marks a turning point between Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art, initiating a new kind of visual inquiry grounded in ambiguity and conceptual tension.

Roy Lichtenstein – Whaam! (1963), Tate Museum, London; Drowning Girl (1963), MoMA, both Oil and Magna on canvas

Claes Oldenburg produced an enormous and innovative body of work that drew from the everyday—clothing, food, furniture, and household tools—transformed through shifts in scale and material. With Clothespin, he enlarged a familiar, functional object into a 45-foot-tall public monument. Installed prominently in downtown Philadelphia, the sculpture invites playful reinterpretation. While clearly recognizable, the piece is filled with surprising meaning: it takes on an almost human form. The exaggerated scale and abstracted shape allow it to resemble a tall man in motion, with legs apart as if striding forward. The wire spring reads as an arm, and the curved top, with its circular cutouts, becomes a stylized head or face. Known for his wit and talent for paradox, Oldenburg creates metaphor in steel—the everyday becomes epic. He once observed, “If you press the legs together, the head explodes,” reflecting his delight in hidden drama beneath the mundane.

Everyday object, monumental form: Elevates a household item to monumental status, transforming the clothespin into a towering steel sculpture.

• Anthropomorphic symbolism: The sculpture suggests a striding figure—legs spread, a spring-like arm, and a facial profile at the top.

• Paradox and metaphor: The piece plays with tension—if the “legs” close, the “head” bursts—hinting at concealed energy or narrative.

• Part of a broader Pop vision: Like Warhol and Lichtenstein, Oldenburg blurred the line between high and low art, using humor and irony to reflect on mass culture.

• Urban engagement: Installed in a bustling plaza, it invites interaction and curiosity from passersby—making public art accessible, engaging, and part of daily life.