Dictionary
Post Painterly Abstraction

Abstract Expression is sometimes referred to as "Post Painterly Abstraction" by art historians. The term dates back to an exhibition of the same name organised by the American art critic Clement Greenberg, which toured Los Angeles, Minneapolis und Toronto in 1964. The exhibition included works -largely executed in the 1960s- by Walter Darby Bannard, George Bireline, Jack Bush, Gene Davis, Paul Feeley, Sam Francis, Helen Frankenthaler, Al Held, Ellsworth Kelly, Morris Louis, Jules Olitski, Raymond Parker and Frank Stella.
These artists used colour fields as a means of expression, which fundamentally differentiated their work from Action Painting, with its emphasis on the process of artistic production and the artist’s gestural signature. For Clement Greenberg, the unifying characteristics of these paintings were their immediate openness and clarity.
More generally, the term Post-Painterly Abstraction, refers to abstract art movements emerging America from the 1960s onwards, including Hard Edge, Colour Field Painting and Systemic Painting.