The Abstract Impulse: Fifty Years of Abstraction at the National Academy, 1956-2006
National Academy

Abstract expressionism has become a prevalent trend within art over the past fifty years. While New York's National Academy initially shunned the American post-World War II art movement, The Abstract Impulse finally acknowledges just how influential and viable the genre has become over the last half century. The term was first applied to American art in 1946, although it is believed that its origins date as far back as 1919 in Germany, as a reference to German expressionism, and in 1929 in relation to the works of Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky.

Divided into three general sections – gesture, geometry and introspection – the show features significant works, such as Robert Mangold's Frieze Study I (1994), best known as a fine example of geometric vocabulary, and Pat Adams's Des Clefs (1990), which transgresses stylistic boundaries to convey a potent element of psychological introspection.

August 1, 2007 through January 6, 2008

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