document_title: Wonder Woman (2017 film)

question_text: what is the name of the new wonder woman

text: Wonder Woman (2017 film)

text: Plot[edit]

text: In present-day Paris, Diana Prince receives a photographic plate of herself and four men taken during World War I, prompting her to recall her past. Daughter of Queen Hippolyta, Diana was raised on the hidden island of Themyscira, home to the Amazonian warrior women created by Zeus to protect mankind. Hippolyta shares the Amazonian history with Diana, including how Ares, Zeus's son, became jealous of humanity and orchestrated its destruction. When the other gods attempted to stop him, Ares killed all but Zeus, who used the last of his power to wound Ares and force his retreat (thus dying in the process). Zeus left the Amazons the island and a weapon, the "Godkiller", to prepare them for Ares' return.

text: Initially forbidding Diana to train as a warrior, Hippolyta allows her sister Antiope to train Diana, only more rigorously than any other warrior. In 1918, Diana, now a young woman, rescues American pilot Captain Steve Trevor when his plane crashes off the Themysciran coast. The island is soon invaded by a German ship pursuing Trevor. The Amazons kill the crew, but Antiope sacrifices herself to save Diana. Steve is interrogated with the Lasso of Hestia, and reveals that a war is consuming the outside world, and that he is an Allied spy. He has stolen a notebook of the chief chemist Isabel Maru, who is attempting to engineer a deadlier form of mustard gas, under the orders of General Erich Ludendorff. Believing Ares to be responsible for the war, Diana arms herself with the "Godkiller" sword, the lasso, and her armor before leaving Themyscira with Steve to locate and destroy Ares for good.

text: In London, they deliver Maru's notebook to the Supreme War Council, where Sir Patrick Morgan is trying to negotiate an armistice with Germany. Diana translates Maru's notes and reveals that the Germans plan to release the deadly gas at the Western Front. Although forbidden by his commander to act, Steve, with secret funding from Sir Patrick, recruits spy Sameer, marksman Charlie, and smuggler Chief to help prevent the gas from being released. The team reaches the front in Belgium. Diana goes alone through No Man's Land and captures the enemy trench, allowing the Allied forces to help her liberate the village of Veld. The team briefly celebrates, while Diana and Steve grow closer romantically.

text: The team learns a gala will be held at the nearby German High Command. Steve and Diana separately infiltrate the party, with Steve intending to locate the gas and destroy it, while Diana intends to kill Ludendorff, believing that he is Ares and thus killing him will end the war. Steve stops her to avoid jeopardizing his mission, but this allows Ludendorff to unleash the gas on Veld, killing its inhabitants. Blaming Steve for intervening, Diana pursues Ludendorff to a base where the gas is being loaded into a bomber aircraft bound for London. Diana fights and kills Ludendorff, but is confused and disillusioned when his death does not stop the war.

text: Sir Patrick appears and reveals himself as Ares. He tells Diana that although he has subtly given humans ideas and inspirations, using Ludendorff and Maru as pawns in the process, it is ultimately their decision to resort to violence as they are inherently corrupt. When Diana attempts to kill Ares with the "Godkiller" sword, he destroys it, then reveals Diana to be the "Godkiller", as the daughter of Zeus and Hippolyta. He fails to persuade Diana to help him destroy mankind to restore paradise on Earth. While the two battle, Steve's team destroys Maru's laboratory. Steve hijacks and pilots the bomber carrying the gas to a safe altitude and detonates it, sacrificing himself in the process. Ares attempts to direct Diana's rage and grief at Steve's death by convincing her to kill Maru, but the memories of her experiences with Steve cause her to realize that humans have good within them. She spares Maru and redirects Ares' lightning into him, killing him. Later, the team celebrates the end of the war. In the present day, Diana sends an email to Bruce Wayne thanking him for the photographic plate of her and Steve and reaffirms her new mission to fight and give on the world's behalf.

text: Cast[edit]

text: Gal Gadot as Diana Prince / Wonder Woman:

text: Chris Pine as Steve Trevor:

text: Robin Wright as Antiope:

text: Danny Huston as General Erich Ludendorff:

text: David Thewlis as Sir Patrick Morgan / Ares:

text: Connie Nielsen as Hippolyta:

text: Elena Anaya as Isabel Maru / Doctor Poison:

text: Lucy Davis as Etta Candy:

text: Saïd Taghmaoui as Sameer:

text: Ewen Bremner as Charlie:

text: Eugene Brave Rock as Chief Napi:

text: Lisa Loven Kongsli as Lt. Menalippe:

text: Additionally, Mayling Ng, Florence Kasumba, Madeleine Vall Beijner, Hayley Jane Warnes and Ann Wolfe portray Orana, Acantha, Egeria, Aella and Artemis, respectively, all of whom are Amazons.[61][62][63][64] James Cosmo appears as Field Marshal Haig, Steffan Rhodri appears as Colonel Darnell, and Dutch model Doutzen Kroes portrays the Amazon Venelia.[63] Samantha Jo was cast as the Amazonian Euboea, and previously played the Kryptonian, Car-Vex, in Man of Steel.[65] Zack Snyder also makes a brief cameo appearance in the film as an unnamed soldier.[66]

text: Production[edit]

text: Background[edit]

text: Development for a live action Wonder Woman feature film began in 1996, with Ivan Reitman attached as producer and possible director.[67] In 1999 the project became attached to Jon Cohen, who adapted Wonder Woman for producer Joel Silver, with the hope that Sandra Bullock would star.[68] By 2001, Todd Alcott was hired to write the screenplay, with Silver Pictures backing the project.[69] At that time, performers such as Mariah Carey and Catherine Zeta-Jones were also rumored to be possible candidates for the role of Wonder Woman.[70] Leonard Goldberg, however, focused on Bullock[71] who said that she was approached for the role. In addition, wrestler Chyna also expressed interest. Lucy Lawless, the star of Xena: Warrior Princess, was also under consideration, though she stated that she would have been more interested if Wonder Woman was portrayed as a "flawed hero".[72] The screenplay went through various drafts written by Alcott, Cohen, Becky Johnston, and Philip Levens,[73] and by August 2003, Levens had been replaced by screenwriter Laeta Kalogridis.[74]

text: In March 2005, Warner Bros. and Silver Pictures announced that Joss Whedon would write and direct the film,[75] with a reported salary was of $2 to $3 million.[76] Since Whedon was directing Serenity at the time, and required time to research Wonder Woman's background, he did not begin the screenplay until late 2005.[77][78][79] Early drafts of his screenplay included Steve Trevor as the narrator, a fierce battle between Diana and her mother over Trevor's welfare, and after leaving Themyscira, his need to frequently rescue a Diana rendered helpless by the modern world.[80] Whedon was not able to complete a final version of his screenplay however, and left the project in 2007.[81][82]

text: Although Whedon stated in May 2005 that he would not cast the part of Wonder Woman until he finished the script,[83] actors such as Kate Beckinsale were linked to the part.[84] In 2010 however, Whedon admitted that he did have an actress in mind for the part, stating that "Wonder Woman was basically Angelina Jolie."[80][85] A few years later in May 2017, Indie Ground Films leaked a version of Whedon's script in-progress online.[86] Some reacted negatively to it on social media in June 2017, shortly after the release of Patty Jenkins' version of the film.[87][88][89][90][91] When asked about this response to his script, Jenkins said in a June 2017 interview that she has not read it and that Whedon is "in the DC universe now, and I don't think there's any reason to go there [...] It was what it was. I'm lucky that I'm the person who got to do it. But I don't see what would be beneficial about comparing what he would've done versus what I would have done."[92][93]

text: A day before Whedon's departure from Wonder Woman, Warner Bros. and Silver Pictures purchased a spec script for the film written by Matthew Jennison and Brent Strickland. Set during World War II, the script impressed executives at Silver Pictures.[82] However, Silver stated that he had purchased the script because he did not want the rights reverting; while stating the script had good ideas, Silver did not want the film to be a period piece.[94] By April 2008, Silver hired Jennison and Strickland to write a new script set in contemporary times that would not depict Wonder Woman's origin, but explore Paradise Island's history.[95] In November 2008, Beyoncé met with representatives from DC Comics and Warner Bros., to discuss her interest in portraying Wonder Woman.[96]

text: In 2010, Warner Bros. stated that a film was in development, along with films based on DC Comics superheroes the Flash and Aquaman.[97] Both Wonder Woman and Aquaman were still under consideration for solo film subjects as of June 2013.[98] DC Chief Diane Nelson said Wonder Woman "has been, since I started, one of the top three priorities for DC and for Warner Bros. We are still trying right now, but she's tricky."[99] On October 5, 2013, WB chairman Kevin Tsujihara said he wanted to get Wonder Woman in a film or on TV.[100] Shortly afterward, Paul Feig said he had pitched the studio an idea for Wonder Woman as an action-comedy film.[101][102] The studio then began to search for female directors to direct the film.[103] While Michelle MacLaren was the studio's initial choice to direct (and while she initially indicated interest),[104][105][106] she eventually left the project due to creative differences.[107]

text: Development[edit]

text: In 2015, Patty Jenkins accepted an offer to direct Wonder Woman,[108] based on a screenplay by Allan Heinberg and a story co-written by Heinberg, Zack Snyder, Geoff Johns and Jason Fuchs.[109] Of this version, Gadot stated that,

text: for a long time, people didn't know how to approach the story. When Patty and I had our creative conversations about the character, we realized that Diana can still be a normal woman, one with very high values, but still a woman. She can be sensitive. She is smart and independent and emotional. She can be confused. She can lose her confidence. She can have confidence. She is everything. She has a human heart.[5]

text: This version was conceived of as a prequel to the first live-action, theatrical appearance of Wonder Woman, in the 2016 film, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice,[110] placing Wonder Woman in the 1910s and World War I (a decision which differs from her comic book origins as a supporter of the Allies during World War II).[111] As for story development, Jenkins credits the stories by the character's creator William Moulton Marston in the 1940s and George Perez's seminal stories in the 1980s in which he modernized the character.[112] In addition, it follows some aspects of DC Comics' origin changes in The New 52 reboot, where Diana is the daughter of Zeus.[12][113] Jenkins cited Richard Donner's Superman as an inspiration.[114]

text: Casting[edit]

text:
"I remember when I read in the news that Wonder Woman had been cast and my heart sank [...] I'm sure we wouldn't have made the same choice. And then I started paying attention to her, and watching her and looking at her and it was just unbelievable. Frankly, I think they did a better job than I could have because I don't know that I would have scoured the earth as hard to find her [...] They were looking for all the same things I would have looked for—all the values that Wonder Woman stands for exuding from someone in an honest way, and boy did they find it [...] She shares every quality with Wonder Woman and that's no joke. It's one of those rare things. You need someone who can appear to be Wonder Woman on screen [...] Every once in a while, there's superhero casting that transcends, because that person is so authentic to the character that it becomes identified with them, like Lynda Carter or Christopher Reeve."

– Director Patty Jenkins[115] in response to the interview questions: "Let's talk a bit about Gal. You inherited her from Zack Snyder. Was it difficult to not get to choose your own Wonder Woman?" and "What is it about Gal that makes her such a good fit?"

tag: div

text: In late 2013, Zack Snyder cast Gal Gadot in the role of Wonder Woman for the 2016 film, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice over Élodie Yung and Olga Kurylenko.[116][117][118][119] Some fans initially reacted to this choice by criticizing Gadot's appearance.[120] Snyder would later comment on his decision to cast Gadot, stating that he tested a "bunch of actresses, as you can imagine. But the thing with Gal is that she's strong, she's beautiful, and she's a kind person, which is interesting, but fierce at the same time. It's that combination of being fierce but kind at the same time that we were looking for.[121] Gadot described Diana as having "the heart of a human so she can be emotional, she's curious, she's compassionate, she loves people. And then she has the powers of a goddess. She's all for good, she fights for good."[5] She also said that Diana has "many strengths and powers, but at the end of the day she's a woman with a lot of emotional intelligence".[122] As to how her character is different from her appearance in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Gadot said "We go back 100 years to when she's more naive", further explaining, "She's this young idealist. She's pure. Very different to the experienced, super-confident, grown-up woman you've seen".[123] Gadot underwent a diet and training regimen, practiced different martial arts and gained 17 pounds of muscle for the role.[124][125] Gadot was previously offered a different role (as a villain) in Man of Steel, which she declined because she was pregnant at the time; this allowed her to later be cast as Wonder Woman in the film's follow-up.[126] Gadot signed a three-picture deal.[118] She was only paid a base salary of $300,000 for the film itself.[127]

text: Chris Pine was cast as Steve Trevor,[21][128] a character he described as a "rogue-ish, cynical realist who's seen the awful brutish nature of modern civilization" and added that he is a "worldly guy, a charming guy".[129] He signed a multi-picture deal.[21] Lucy Davis' performance as Etta Candy is the first live-action cinematic portrayal of the character.[130] As well, Elena Anaya's performance as Doctor Poison is the cinematic debut of that character. Nicole Kidman was in negotiations for the role of Queen Hippolyta, but was forced to drop out due to scheduling conflicts with Big Little Lies.[131][132]

text: Filming[edit]

text: Production began on November 21, 2015,[133][134] under the working title Nightingale.[135][136] Among the film sets were Lower Halstow, Kent,[137] Australia House,[138] and the Sassi di Matera,[139] Castel del Monte[139] and Camerota[140] in Southern Italy. Matthew Jensen was the director of photography,[141] filming in the United Kingdom, France and Italy.[142] Production in London ended on March 13, 2016.[143] On March 20, 2016, filming was underway in Italy. In late April, filming took place at a museum in France, where a Wayne Enterprises truck was spotted alongside Gadot.[144] Production ended on May 9, 2016.[145] Patty Jenkins and director of photography Matt Jensen revealed that the film's look was inspired by painter John Singer Sargent.[146] Reshoots took place in November 2016, while Gadot was five months pregnant. A green cloth was placed over her stomach to edit out her pregnancy during post-production.[147]

text: To find the perfect location to shoot the Amazon island of Themyscira, the birthplace of Wonder Woman herself, the film's producers searched all over the world, finally settling on the Amalfi Coast: a stretch of coastline on the Tyrrhenian Sea, located in the Province of Salerno in Southern Italy.[148] It was chosen because most beaches in the world that sit below big cliffs disappear beneath the tide for part of every day. Production designer Aline Bonetto and her location manager Charles Somers considered 47 countries and visited several of them before they found what they were looking for. Bonetto explained that, "Italy had beautiful weather, a beautiful blue-green sea, not too much tide, not too much wave. Our effects team added some cliffs in post-production, and it was the perfect way to go".[149]

text: The estuary at Lower Halstow in Kent, featured in the scenes in which Princess Diana arrives in the Belgian creek to make her way to the warfront.[150]

text: Post-production[edit]

text: Bill Westenhofer served as the visual effects supervisor for the film[151] and Martin Walsh served as editor.[141]

text: Music[edit]

text: On November 3, 2016, Rupert Gregson-Williams was hired to write and compose the film's music.[152] He was joined by Evan Jolly, Tom Howe,[153] Paul Mounsey,[154] and Andrew Kawczynski,[155] who provided additional music. The soundtrack was released on CD, digital, and vinyl the same day as the film.[156] Australian musician Sia sang a song for the film, titled "To Be Human", featuring English musician Labrinth. Written by Florence Welch and Rick Nowels, the track is also featured on the soundtrack.[157]

text: Additional music featured in the film are: "Another Little Drink Wouldn't Do Us Any Harm" by Clifford Grey and Nat Ayer and performed by Edgar Trevor and Cecil Cooper; "Molly O'Morgan" written by Fred Godfrey and Will Letters and performed by Ella Retford; "It's a Long Way to Tipperary" written by Jack Judge and Harry Williams; "Sous les ponts de Paris" written by Jean Rodor and Vincent Scotto and performed by Lucienne Delyle; "I'll Walk Beside You" written by Edward Lockton and Alan Murray and performed by Ewen Bremner; "Green Grow the Rushes, O" written by Robert Burns and performed by Ewen Bremner; and "Schatzwalzer Op. 4" written by Johann Strauss II and performed by the Berlin String Quartet.[158] Also features samples from the movie's soundtrack "Is She with You" from Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice composed by Hans Zimmer and Junkie XL.

text: Release[edit]

text: Wonder Woman had its world premiere on May 15, 2017 in Shanghai. It premiered on May 25, 2017 in Los Angeles.[159] The film's London premiere, which was scheduled to take place on May 31 at the Odeon Leicester Square, was cancelled due to the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing.[160] The film had its Latin America premiere in Mexico City on May 27. It was released in most of the world, including in IMAX,[161] on June 2, 2017, after originally being scheduled for June 23.[162][163] Belgium, Singapore and South Korea received the film first, with May 31 openings.[164][165][166] On April 17, it was announced that Wonder Woman would be released in China on June 2, the same day as its North American release.[167]

text: Marketing[edit]

text: The success of the superhero television series Supergirl informed the marketing and promotion strategy used for Wonder Woman.[168] According to Time Warner chief marketing officer Kristen O'Hara, they wanted to approach the Wonder Woman marketing campaign in a light manner, similar to how they did with Supergirl. O'Hara elaborated that the modest campaign route they took for Supergirl aided in establishing a large central fanbase among women well in advance of the series, which reportedly generated 5 million female superhero fans in one week.[168] They were then able to model over time, and grow that audience leading up to the 15-months-later release of Wonder Woman.[168] Though neither the film nor the series are aimed exclusively at women, the latter's campaign gave them their first opportunity to begin collecting data about female superhero fans.[168] In May 2017, a promo for Wonder Woman was released during the season finale of Supergirl, featuring a remix of the song "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'" and Supergirl (Melissa Benoist) wearing Wonder Woman's boots.[169] The promo included an appearance by Lynda Carter, star of the 1970s Wonder Woman, who plays the American president on Supergirl.[169]

text: The costs for television advertisements for Wonder Woman are higher in comparison to that of previous DCEU film Suicide Squad. Warner Bros. has spent over $3 million on advertisements for Wonder Woman, whereas they spent $2.6 million on advertisements for Suicide Squad.[170] Ticket selling site Fandango reported that Wonder Woman rounded the final leg of its marketing campaign as the most anticipated blockbuster of summer 2017, according to a poll conducted by 10,000 voters, the biggest survey in company history.[171] Separately, Fandango also found that 92% of people surveyed said that they are looking forward to seeing a film that features a standalone woman superhero, and 87% wished Hollywood would make more women-led superhero films.[172] In May 2017, NASCAR driver Danica Patrick drove her No. 10 car with a Wonder Woman paint scheme at the Go Bowling 400 in Kansas and at the Monster Energy Open in Charlotte.[173]

text: Home media[edit]

text: Wonder Woman was released on Digital HD on August 29, 2017 and on Blu-ray, Blu-ray 3D, 4K Ultra-HD Blu-ray and DVD on September 19, 2017.[174] The film debuted at the top spot of both the NPD VideoScan overall disc sales chart and the Blu-ray Disc sales chart.[175]

text: Controversies[edit]

text: Bans[edit]

text: On May 31, Wonder Woman was banned in Lebanon after the Campaign to Boycott Supporters of Israel asked the Lebanese government's Ministry of Economy and Trade to block the film because its star, Gal Gadot, is Israeli.[176] The Lebanese government did not, however, ban Gadot's Fast & Furious films which did screen in Lebanon.[177][178] On June 7, Variety reported that a Tunisian court suspended the theatrical release of Wonder Woman after a lawsuit brought by the Al-Chaab party and the Tunisian Association of Young Lawyers to have the film blocked due to Gadot's Israeli citizenship, military service, and public comments in support of the Israeli military during the 2014 war in Gaza.[179] Jordan was reportedly also considering a ban of the film and suspended screenings pending a decision,[180] but on June 11, Al Bawaba reported that the government decided not to do so, as there was no legal precedent for it.[181]

text: Women-only screenings[edit]

text: Some men were unhappy with women-only screenings held at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Austin, with some opponents of the gender-restricted screening stating on platforms such as Facebook that such screenings were discriminatory against men.[182][183][184]

text: An Albany Law School professor initiated a complaint with Austin's Equal Employment and Fair Housing Office claiming discrimination against male prospective customers and employees of the theater.[185] The chain responded with an online statement saying the event "may have created confusion—we want everybody to see this film" and announced a similar event at their Brooklyn location. Tickets sold out in less than an hour, prompting the chain to schedule additional screenings.[182] On July 18, Alamo Drafthouse proposed settlement offers of a Wonder Woman DVD to the complainants, stating "Respondent did not realize that advertising a 'women's only' screening was a violation of discrimination laws"[186]

text: Reception[edit]

text: Box office[edit]

text: Wonder Woman grossed $412.6 million in the United States and Canada and $409.3 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $821.9 million, against a production budget of $149 million.[4] Estimates for the number the film needed to surpass internationally in order to cover its production and promotional costs and break even ranged from $300 million[187] to $460 million.[188]

text: North America[edit]

text: In May 2017, early tracking had Wonder Woman opening with $65–75 million, and possibly as high as $105 million.[189][190][191][192][187] The film opened Friday, June 2, 2017, across 4,165 theaters and made $38.7 million on its opening day, including $3.7 million in IMAX. It was the biggest single-day gross for a woman-directed film, ahead of the $35.9 million opening Friday of Catherine Hardwicke's Twilight in 2008 and the biggest opening day for a woman-led comic book superhero film, ahead of Ghost in the Shell ($7 million).[193] This included $11 million it made from Thursday previews, also the best start for a film directed by a woman, surpassing Fifty Shades of Grey's $8.6 million which was directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson, and the third-biggest of the year, behind Beauty and the Beast and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. Of that, $1.5 million came from IMAX screenings.[194][195]

text: Earning a total of $103.3 million on its opening weekend, the film recorded a number of records: the biggest domestic opening of all time for a female director (surpassing previous record holder Fifty Shades of Grey by Sam Taylor-Johnson), the biggest DC Comics release without Batman or Superman (ahead of Constantine), the sixth-biggest non-sequel comic book superhero debut ever, as well as the sixth-biggest June debut weekend.[196] Its three-day opening alone made it the highest-grossing woman-led comic book superhero film ever (surpassing Ghost in the Shell).[197] It was also the 16th superhero film to cross $100 million in its domestic box office launch.[198] About 9% ($9 million) of the opening weekend came from IMAX screenings from 343 theaters.[199] In its second week the film grossed $58.5 million, again topping the box office. It marked a 43.3% drop for its second weekend at the box office, better than the average 50–60% decline superhero films tend to see, and was a better second weekend than Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice ($51.3 million) and Suicide Squad ($43.5 million).[200] In its third weekend it grossed $40.8 million, finishing second behind newcomer Cars 3 ($53.5 million). It was the second-best third weekend ever for Warner Bros. and was nearly double what Batman v Superman ($23.3 million), Suicide Squad ($20.9 million) and Man of Steel ($20.7 million) made in their third weekends. It earned $24.9 million and $15.7 million in its fourth and fifth weekends, respectively, dropping just 39% and 36% despite facing rough competition from opening films Transformers: The Last Knight and Despicable Me 3.[201] It eventually became the highest-grossing film directed by a woman, surpassing the previous records of Jennifer Yuh Nelson's Kung Fu Panda 2 and Phyllida Lloyd's Mamma Mia!.[8] By August 8, the film had garnered $400 million in ticket sales, becoming the second female-fueled film (after Disney's Beauty and the Beast), Warner Bros.' third-biggest movie (after Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises), holding the record of the highest-earning superhero origin film—supplanting the previous record held by Spider-Man (2002), and also becoming the highest-earning film with a female director in terms of domestic earnings—surpassing Frozen (2013).[202][203]

text: International[edit]

text: Internationally, the film was released day-and-date with its North American debut in 55 markets (72% of its total release), and was projected to debut with anywhere between $92–118 million.[187] It ended up opening to $125 million, including $38 million in China, $8.5 million in Korea, $8.4 million in Mexico, $8.3 million in Brazil and $7.5 million in the UK.[204] In its second week of release, the film brought in another $60 million, including holding the top spot on France, the UK, Australia and Brazil.[205] As of June 25, 2017, the biggest markets of Wonder Woman outside North America are China (US$90 million) followed by Brazil (US$34 million), UK (US$28 million) and Australia (US$24 million). In the Philippines, it broke 2017 box office record for highest-earning non-holiday opening day—earning $4.7 million and becoming the 6th-most successful commercial film of all time as well overtaking the record set by Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.[206][207][208] The film opened in its last market, Japan, on August 25 and debuted to $3.4 million, helping the international gross cross the $400 million mark.[209]

text: Critical response[edit]

text: Wonder Woman received largely positive reviews from film critics, with some calling it the best film in the DC Extended Universe, and praising Jenkins' direction, performances, chemistry of Gadot and Pine and musical score.[7][213] On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 92% based on 360 reviews, with an average rating of 7.5/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Thrilling, earnest, and buoyed by Gal Gadot's charismatic performance, Wonder Woman succeeds in spectacular fashion."[214] It is the highest-rated superhero film on the site.[9][note 1] On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating, the film has a score of 76 out of 100, based on 50 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[215] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.[216]

text: Critics commented favorably on Gadot's performance of the titular character and Chris Pine's Steve Trevor.[217][218][212] Andrew Barker of Variety found the film to be more lighthearted than recent DC Comics films: "Never prone to stewing in solitude, and taking more notes from Richard Donner than from Christopher Nolan, Patty Jenkins' Wonder Woman provides a welcome respite from DC's house style of grim darkness—boisterous, earnest, sometimes sloppy, yet consistently entertaining—with star Gal Gadot proving an inspired choice for this avatar of truth, justice, and the Amazonian way."[219] Vox stated "Trevor is the superhero girlfriend comic book movies need".[220] The San Francisco Chronicle's Mick LaSalle lauded the performances of Gadot, Pine, Huston, and Thewlis while commending the film's "different perspective" and humor.[221] Richard Roeper of Chicago Sun-Times described Gadot's performance as inspirational, heroic, heartfelt and endearing and the most "real" Wonder Woman portrayal.[222]

text: A. O. Scott of The New York Times wrote that it "briskly shakes off blockbuster branding imperatives and allows itself to be something relatively rare in the modern superhero cosmos. It feels less like yet another installment in an endless sequence of apocalyptic merchandising opportunities than like ... what's the word I'm looking for? A movie. A pretty good one, too."[223] Michael Phillips of Chicago Tribune compared the film to Captain America: The First Avenger, noting that as with "the first Captain America movie over in the Marvel Comics universe, DC's Wonder Woman offers the pleasures of period re-creation for a popular audience. Jenkins and her design team make 1918-era London; war-torn Belgium; the Ottoman Empire; and other locales look freshly realized, with a strong point of view. There are scenes here of dispossessed war refugees, witnessed by an astonished and heartbroken Diana, that carry unusual gravity for a comic book adaptation."[224] Katie Erbland of IndieWire commended its thematic depth, explaining that "Wonder Woman is a war movie. Patty Jenkins' first—and we hope not last—entry into the DC Expanded Universe is primarily set during World War I, but while the feature doesn't balk at war-time violence, it's the internal battles of its compelling heroine that are most vital."[225] Alonso Duralde of TheWrap similarly felt that, "Diana's scenes of action are thrilling precisely because they're meant to stop war, not to foment it; the idea of a demi-god using love to fight war might sound goofy in the abstract, but Jenkins makes the concept work."[226] Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post praised Gadot and Pine's performances as well the film's detailed plot and narrative while comparing of some slow-motion action sequences to The Matrix.[227] Stephanie Zacharek of Time magazine hailed the film as a "cut above nearly all the superhero movies that have been trotted out over the past few summers" while praising Gadot's performance as "charming" and "marvelous" and commending Jenkins' direction of the film as a step forward for women directors in directing big-budget blockbuster films in Hollywood.[228]

text: Elise Jost of Moviepilot observed that "Gadot's take on Wonder Woman is one of those unique cases of an actor merging with their story, similar to Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark. Gal Gadot is Wonder Woman, and Wonder Woman is Gal Gadot."[212] Jost praised Gadot's interpretation of Wonder Woman as the one in which Gadot "absolutely nails the character's unwaveringly positive outlook on life. She's a force of nature who believes in the greater good; her conviction that she's meant to save the world is stronger than her bullet-deflecting shield. She's genuine, she's fun, she's the warm source of energy at the heart of the movie."[212] The Federalist suggests that Wonder Woman is "a story of Jesus". "The movie is wrapped up in faux Greek mythology, true, but there's no mistaking the Christology here."[229] "Perhaps Christ in the form of a beautiful and kick-ass Amazon is all that our contemporary society can handle right now", stated M. Hudson, a Christian feminist.[229] On HuffPost cultural critic, G. Roger Denson, who regards the superhero genre as a source of contemporary "Mainstream Mythopoetics" ("the making of new yet vitally meaningful, if not symbolic, stories filled with imagery reflecting, yet also shaping and advancing, the political, legal, moral and social practices of today"), wrote that the "No Man's Land" scene "that people are crying over in theaters and raving about afterward happens to be among the most powerfully mythopoetic scenes ever filmed at the same time it is one of the oldest myths to have been utilized by artists and writers after it had been invented by early military strategists and leaders." Specifically "used by director Patty Jenkins", the scene raises "the esteem for powerful yet compassionate women as heroes and leaders to a level equal with that of men for having won over a huge and adoring popular audience around the world".[230]

text: Steve Rose in The Guardian criticized the film for failing to explore the material's potential for "patriarchy-upending subversion".[231] Peter Travers of Rolling Stone criticized the film's over-reliance on exposition: "Wonder Woman is hobbled by a slogging origin story and action that only comes in fits and starts. Just when Gadot and director Patty Jenkins...are ready to kick ass, we get backstory."[232]

text: "Gas was intended to win the war. On that much Wonder Woman is absolutely right." said David Hambling in Popular Mechanics.[233] Rachel Becker of The Verge stated that despite the scientific liberties of using a "hydrogen-based" chemical weapon as a plot device, the film succeeds in evoking real and horrifying history. "First off, mustard gas is such a horrible, terrifying weapon, it doesn't need to be made more potent. But if you were a chemist bent on raining destruction on the Allied forces, you wouldn't do it by replacing the sulfur atom in mustard gas with a hydrogen atom. You'd know that sulfur is the linchpin holding together this poisonous molecule."[234]

text: Top lists[edit]

text: Wonder Woman appeared on several critics' lists of the best films of 2017.[235]

text:
Top 10 (listed alphabetically, not ranked) – AFI Awards[236]
Top 10 (listed alphabetically, not ranked) – Dana Stevens, Slate[237]
Top 10 (listed alphabetically, not ranked) – Joe Morgenstern, The Wall Street Journal[238]
Top 10 (listed alphabetically, not ranked) – Harry Fletcher, London Evening Standard[239]
Top 15 (listed alphabetically, not ranked) – PopCrush[240]
5th – Zachary Lee, The Cornell Daily Sun[241]
5th – Total Film[242]
7th – Bill Stamets, RogerEbert.com[243]
8th – NME[244]
8th – Lindsey Bahr, Associated Press[245]
9th – B.J. Bethel, RogerEbert.com[243]
10th – Susan Wloszczyna, RogerEbert.com[243]
10th – Manohla Dargis, The New York Times[246]
10th – Entertainment Weekly[247]
25th – Nick Schager, Esquire[248]

text: Honorable Mentions:

text:
Stephanie Zacharek, Time[249]
Matt Zoller Seitz, RogerEbert.com[243]

text: Feminist debate[edit]

text: Wonder Woman has been the subject of a discussion regarding the appearance and representation of female power in general, and of female action heroes in particular[250] since her initial 1941 appearance in Sensation Comics,[250] as she was created to document "the growth in the power of women", while wearing "a golden tiara, a red bustier, blue underpants and knee-high, red leather boots."[251] She was blacklisted a year later in 1942 in the "Publications Disapproved for Youth" because, the group behind the list argued, she was "not sufficiently dressed".[251][252]

text: A few decades later, second-wave feminist Gloria Steinem's[253] Ms. Magazine debuted in 1972 with an image of Wonder Woman on the cover. Historian Tim Hanley suggested that this move shifted "the focus away from female superiority to sisterhood and equality, essentially making her a mascot of the women's movement".[250][254][255] This perception shifted over the years, however, as demonstrated in December 2016 when the United Nations decided to drop the title of "honorary ambassador for the empowerment of women and girls" which it had given to the comic book character Wonder Woman a few months before, in a ceremony attended by the actors who had portrayed her (Lynda Carter and Gal Gadot).[256] The title was dropped in response to a petition signed by 44,000 people which argued that Wonder Woman undermines female empowerment due to her costume, described as a "shimmery, thigh-baring bodysuit with an American flag motif and knee-high boots". The petition stated that "it is alarming that the United Nations would consider using a character with an overtly sexualised image at a time when the headline news in United States and the world is the objectification of women and girls".[257][258][254] Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins responded to both the petition and to the U.N.'s decision by stating that she thinks "that that's sexist. I think it's sexist to say you can't have both. I have to ask myself what I would apply to any other superhero".[259]

text: The debate continued with the release of Jenkins' 2017 film, Wonder Woman, which according to the BBC had "some thinking it's too feminist and others thinking it's not feminist enough".[260][261][262][263][264] Kyle Killian found an inherent contradiction in the construction of Wonder Woman as "a warrior" whom, she states, is also highly sexualized. Killian thus suggests that these elements "should not be the focus of a kickass heroine—her beauty, bone structure, and sexiness—if she is to be a feminist icon".[265] Theresa Harold concurred, comparing Wonder Woman to Katniss Everdeen (of The Hunger Games), who "didn't have to wear a teenager's wet dream of a costume to fight in".[266] Christina Cauterucci also felt that Wonder Woman's ability to be considered a "feminist antidote" was undermined by her "sex appeal".[267] Other critics refer to the construction of Wonder Woman in the film as "an implausible post-feminist hero".[252][268]

text: Jenkins disagrees with this line of critique, however. She has stated that she was raised by a second-wave "feminist mother",[269][270] who taught her to be "both super aware that there had been sexism but also: 'Congratulations—thank you, now I get to do whatever I want, Mom!'"[269] Jenkins thus notes that it is this upbringing which has led her to question a feminist critique of Wonder Woman’s costume.[271] When she was working on her own version of Wonder Woman's "Gladiator" re-design of the outfit (in the 2016 film Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice)[272] Jenkins decided that Wonder Woman (as well as the other Amazons) "shouldn't be dressed in armor like men [...] It should be different [...] I, as a woman, want Wonder Woman to be hot as hell, fight badass, and look great at the same time—the same way men want Superman to have huge pecs and an impractically big body."[17] Jenkins also notes that she is "frustrated" by the critique of Wonder Woman's appearance, stating "when people get super critical about her outfit, who's the one getting crazy about what a woman wears? That's who she is; that's Wonder Woman."[270] Gal Gadot concurred with Jenkins, arguing that the character "is a feminist"[273] as "feminism is about equality and choice and freedom. And the writers, Patty and myself all figured that the best way to show that is to show Diana as having no awareness of social roles. She has no gender boundaries. To her, everyone is equal."[274]

text: Critics such as Valerie Estelle Frankel support Jenkins' vision. Frankel argues that the film subverts the male gaze,[271] stating that the construction of Wonder Woman tends to shift every few decades as it reflects the state of feminism during different time periods, including third-wave feminism (which reflects Jenkins' approach).[271][275][276] Zoe Williams offers a similar argument stating that while Wonder Woman "is sort of naked a lot of the time" it isn't, at the same time, "objectification so much as a cultural reset: having thighs, actual thighs you can kick things with, not thighs that look like arms, is a feminist act".[277] Williams then juxtaposes Wonder Woman to past female action heroes such as Sarah Connor, Ellen Ripley, and Lara Croft, whom she suggests were all constructed for the male gaze, in which a "female warrior becomes a sex object", (a point which she argues that Jenkins directly references in the film).[277] Gloria Steinem thought that the film "was very good" as it made Wonder Woman's "Amazon origin story clear; she was stopping war, not perpetuating it." Steinem also noted that she knew "some women were disappointed by all the makeup, but I may be desperate—I was just happy that the Amazons had wild hair!" Her only complaint lay in the choice to eliminate the World War II setting as the Wonder Woman comic book developed in response to existing comics that were "so sadistic and racist that there was a congressional hearing on the subject".[278] Steinem also gave Hillary Clinton the first Wonder Woman Award in October 2017 during the Women's Media Center's "Speaking Truth to Power Awards" (an organization created by Steinem, Jane Fonda, and Robin Morgan). Upon receiving the award, Clinton noted that she had seen Jenkins' Wonder Woman film and that she "loved the outfit". She also said that as her granddaughter was "really keen" on Wonder Woman, Clinton "thought maybe I could borrow something from her for the night. It didn't quite work for me, but I will say that this award means a lot to me because as a little girl, and then as a young woman, and then as a slightly older woman, I always wondered when Wonder Woman would have her time, and now that has happened."[279] Clinton had previously praised Jenkins' film, in a public August 2017 message, stating that "it was just as inspirational as I'd suspected a movie about a strong, powerful woman in a fight to save the world from international disaster would be."[280][281][282]

text: Director James Cameron continued this debate, through his critique of the representation of female power in Jenkins' film. In an August 2017 interview with The Guardian, Cameron qualifies Jenkins' vision of Wonder Woman as "an objectified icon" and called the film "a step backwards". In contrast, he states, his character Sarah Connor (from his Terminator films) "was not a beauty icon. She was strong, she was troubled, she was a terrible mother, and she earned the respect of the audience through pure grit."[283] Jenkins stated in response that Cameron's "inability to understand what 'Wonder Woman' is, or stands for, to women all over the world is unsurprising as, though he is a great filmmaker, he is not a woman". She further argued "there is no right and wrong kind of powerful woman" because "if women have to always be hard, tough and troubled to be strong, and we aren't free to be multidimensional or celebrate an icon of women everywhere because she is attractive and loving, then we haven't come very far have we."[284] Reaction to this debate was mixed. Julie Miller sided with Cameron whom she states refers to himself as "a pretty hardcore feminist" and who told Vulture that "I have no problem writing a script in which the males become subservient to the females, which is what happens in Aliens [...] It's up to Ripley to win the day." In contrast, Miller argues that Jenkins and Gadot envisioned Wonder Woman as "a woman who exuded both femininity and strength, along with genuine confusion as to why men would treat women differently than they do other men".[285] Susannah Breslin also agreed with Cameron, describing Jenkins' Wonder Woman as "a Playmate with a lasso" and "female power with no balls".[286] Others were more critical of Cameron's critique.[287] An article in Newsweek suggested that Cameron's films include "lot of objectification", and included quotes from Hollywood celebrities such as Jesse McLaren who commented that "James Cameron's just confused there's a female hero whose motivations aren't centered around motherhood."[288] Noah Berlatsky found areas of agreement between both Cameron and Jenkins, stating that while Cameron's objection is "an old point that's been made over and over for decades", Jenkins film isn't "solely focused on objectifying Gal Gadot for a male audience".[289]

text: A few weeks later in September, Cameron reiterated his criticism in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. He compared Gal Gadot's representation of the character to Raquel Welch films of the 1960s,[290] and reinforced a comparison with Linda Hamilton's portrayal of Sarah Connor. He argued that Connor was "if not ahead of its time, at least a breakthrough in its time" because though she "looked great", she "wasn't treated as a sex object".[290] He also stated that he while he "applaud[s] Patty directing the film and Hollywood, uh, 'letting' a woman direct a major action franchise, I didn't think there was anything groundbreaking in Wonder Woman. I thought it was a good film. Period."[290] Former Wonder Woman actress Lynda Carter responded to Cameron's The Hollywood Reporter interview by asking him to "Stop dissing WW." Like Jenkins, she suggests that while Cameron does "not understand the character", she does. She also refers to Cameron's critiques as "thuggish jabs at a brilliant director" that "are ill advised" as the "movie was spot on". Carter also states that she has the authority to make these observations because she has "embodied this character for more than 40 years".[291][292][293] A month later, Jenkins responded to Cameron's comments once again in an interview with Variety, stating that she "was not upset at all" as "everybody is entitled to their own opinion. But if you're going to debate something in a public way, I have to reply that I think it's incorrect."[294] Tricia Ennis was also critical of Cameron's statements, arguing that "while he may consider himself a feminist and an ally to women, [he] is not very good at it" as being an ally means using his position of privilege "without silencing the voices of those you're trying to help". She also states that it "is not enough to simply call yourself a feminist. It's not even enough to create a strong female character [...] You have to bring women to the table. You have to let them speak. You cannot speak for them. But speaking for women is exactly what Cameron is doing through his comments [...] Cameron is using his position of power as a respected producer and director to silence women."[295]

text: Accolades[edit]

text:
Award
Date of ceremony
Category
Recipient(s) and nominee(s)
Result
Ref.

American Film Institute
January 5, 2018
Top Ten Films of the Year
Wonder Woman
Won
[296]

Critics' Choice Movie Awards
January 11, 2018
Best Action Movie
Wonder Woman
Pending
[297]

Best Costume Design
Lindy Hemming

Best Visual Effects
Wonder Woman

Detroit Film Critics Society
December 7, 2017
Breakthrough
Gal Gadot
Nominated
[298]

Dragon Awards
September 3, 2017
Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Movie
Wonder Woman
Won
[299]

Golden Trailer Awards
June 6, 2017
Best of Show
Wonder Woman
Won
[300]
[301]

Best Fantasy / Adventure

Best Summer 2017 Blockbuster Trailer
Nominated

Best Fantasy / Adventure Poster

Best Summer 2017 Blockbuster Poster
Won

Hollywood Music in Media Awards
November 16, 2017
Best Original Score – Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Horror Film
Rupert Gregson-Williams
Nominated
[302]
[303]

IndieWire Critic's Poll
December 19, 2016
Most Anticipated of 2017
Wonder Woman
Nominated
[304]

International Online Cinema Awards (INOCA)
July 29, 2017
Best Visual Effects
Nominated
[305]

Best Sound Mixing

Best Original Song
"To Be Human" – Sia and Labrinth

Los Angeles Online Film Critics Society
January 3, 2018
Best Female Director
Patty Jenkins
Nominated
[306]
[307]

Best Stunt Work
Wonder Woman

Best Action/War

Best Blockbuster
Won

Best Visual Efects
Nominated

Memphis Online Film Critics Awards
December 11, 2017
Best Costume Design
Wonder Woman
Won
[308]

National Board of Review
January 9, 2018
Spotlight Award
Patty Jenkins
Won
[309]

Gal Gadot

North Texas Film Critics Association
December 17, 2017
Best Actress
Gal Gadot
Nominated
[310]

Best Director
Patty Jenkins

Best Cinematography
Matthew Jensen

Palm Springs International Film Festival
January 2, 2018
Rising Star Award – Actress
Gal Gadot
Won
[311]

Phoenix Film Critics Society
December 19, 2017
Best Costume Design
Wonder Woman
Nominated
[312]
[313]

Best Visual Effects

Santa Barbara Film Festival
February 3, 2018
Virtuosos Award
Gal Gadot
Won
[314]

Satellite Awards
February 10, 2018
Best Adapted Screenplay
Allan Heinberg, Zack Snyder, and Jason Fuchs
Pending
[315]

Best Original Score
Rupert Gregson-Williams

Best Visual Effects
Wonder Woman

Screen Actors Guild Awards
January 21, 2018
Outstanding Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Motion Picture
Wonder Woman
Pending
[316]

Teen Choice Awards
August 13, 2017
Choice Movie: Action
Wonder Woman
Won
[317]
[318]
[319]

Choice Movie Actor: Action
Chris Pine

Choice Movie Actress: Action
Gal Gadot

Choice Movie: Ship
Gal Gadot and Chris Pine
Nominated

Choice Liplock

Choice Movie: Summer
Wonder Woman

Choice Movie Actor: Summer
Chris Pine

Choice Movie Actress: Summer
Gal Gadot

Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association
December 8, 2017
Best Production Design
Aline Bonetto and Anna Lynch-Robinson
Nominated
[320]

Women Film Critics Circle Awards
December 17, 2017
Women’s Work: Best Ensemble
Wonder Woman
Pending
[321]

Best Female Action Hero

Best Equality Of The Sexes

text: Sequel[edit]

text: Originally signed for three feature films, with Wonder Woman and Justice League being her second and third films, Gadot signed an extension to her contract for additional films.[322] Jenkins initially signed for only one film,[323] but in an interview with Variety, Geoff Johns revealed that he and Jenkins are writing the treatment for a Wonder Woman sequel and that he has a "cool idea for the second one". At the 2017 San Diego Comic Con, Warner Bros. officially announced a sequel would be released on December 13, 2019, and would be titled Wonder Woman 2; the date was later moved up to November 1, 2019 to avoid competition with Star Wars: Episode IX.[324][325][326] Later, Jenkins was officially signed to return as director, with confirmation that Gadot will be returning as the titular role.[327] On August 19, 2017, actress Geena Davis stated that she would like very much to play a role in Wonder Woman 2 and that she is in talks with Jenkins about that matter.[328] Days later, the studio hired Dave Callaham to co-write the film's script with Jenkins and Johns.[329]

text: Notes[edit]

text: Jump up ^ This is by an adjusted Tomatometer with at least 20 reviews each that, uses a weighted Bayesian based formula to account for the differences in ratings.

tag: ol


document_title: Abstract expressionism

question_text: artists of the new york school of abstract expressionism produced paintings that are abstract but

root

text: Abstract expressionism

text: Style[edit]

text: Technically, an important predecessor is surrealism, with its emphasis on spontaneous, automatic, or subconscious creation. Jackson Pollock's dripping paint onto a canvas laid on the floor is a technique that has its roots in the work of André Masson, Max Ernst, and David Alfaro Siqueiros. The newer research tends to put the exile-surrealist Wolfgang Paalen in the position of the artist and theoretician who fostered the theory of the viewer-dependent possibility space through his paintings and his magazine DYN. Paalen considered ideas of quantum mechanics, as well as idiosyncratic interpretations of the totemic vision and the spatial structure of native-Indian painting from British Columbia and prepared the ground for the new spatial vision of the young American abstracts. His long essay Totem Art (1943) had considerable influence on such artists as Martha Graham, Isamu Noguchi, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman.[3] Around 1944 Barnett Newman tried to explain America's newest art movement and included a list of "the men in the new movement." Paalen is mentioned twice; other artists mentioned are Gottlieb, Rothko, Pollock, Hofmann, Baziotes, Gorky and others. Motherwell is mentioned with a question mark.[4] Another important early manifestation of what came to be abstract expressionism is the work of American Northwest artist Mark Tobey, especially his "white writing" canvases, which, though generally not large in scale, anticipate the "all-over" look of Pollock's drip paintings.

tag: p

text: The movement's name is derived from the combination of the emotional intensity and self-denial of the German Expressionists with the anti-figurative aesthetic of the European abstract schools such as Futurism, the Bauhaus, and Synthetic Cubism. Additionally, it has an image of being rebellious, anarchic, highly idiosyncratic and, some feel, nihilistic.[5] In practice, the term is applied to any number of artists working (mostly) in New York who had quite different styles, and even to work that is neither especially abstract nor expressionist. California Abstract Expressionist Jay Meuser, who typically painted in the non-objective style, wrote about his painting Mare Nostrum, "It is far better to capture the glorious spirit of the sea than to paint all of its tiny ripples." Pollock's energetic "action paintings", with their "busy" feel, are different, both technically and aesthetically, from the violent and grotesque Women series of Willem de Kooning's figurative paintings and the rectangles of color in Mark Rothko's Color Field paintings (which are not what would usually be called expressionist, and which Rothko denied were abstract). Yet all four artists are classified as abstract expressionists.

text: Abstract expressionism has many stylistic similarities to the Russian artists of the early 20th century such as Wassily Kandinsky. Although it is true that spontaneity or the impression of spontaneity characterized many of the abstract expressionists' works, most of these paintings involved careful planning, especially since their large size demanded it. With artists such as Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, Emma Kunz, and later on Rothko, Barnett Newman, and Agnes Martin, abstract art clearly implied expression of ideas concerning the spiritual, the unconscious, and the mind.[6]

text: Why this style gained mainstream acceptance in the 1950s is a matter of debate. American social realism had been the mainstream in the 1930s. It had been influenced not only by the Great Depression, but also by the muralists of Mexico such as David Alfaro Siqueiros and Diego Rivera. The political climate after World War II did not long tolerate the social protests of these painters. Abstract expressionism arose during World War II and began to be showcased during the early forties at galleries in New York such as The Art of This Century Gallery. The McCarthy era after World War II was a time of artistic censorship in the United States, but if the subject matter were totally abstract then it would be seen as apolitical, and therefore safe. Or if the art was political, the message was largely for the insiders.[7]

text: While the movement is closely associated with painting, and painters such as Arshile Gorky, Franz Kline, Clyfford Still, Hans Hofmann, Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, and others, collagist Anne Ryan and certain sculptors in particular were also integral to abstract expressionism.[8] David Smith, and his wife Dorothy Dehner, Herbert Ferber, Isamu Noguchi, Ibram Lassaw, Theodore Roszak, Phillip Pavia, Mary Callery, Richard Stankiewicz, Louise Bourgeois, and Louise Nevelson in particular were some of the sculptors considered as being important members of the movement. In addition, the artists David Hare, John Chamberlain, James Rosati, Mark di Suvero, and sculptors Richard Lippold, Raoul Hague, George Rickey, Reuben Nakian, and even Tony Smith, Seymour Lipton, Joseph Cornell, and several others[9] were integral parts of the Abstract expressionist movement. Many of the sculptors listed participated in the Ninth Street Show,[9] a famous exhibition curated by Leo Castelli on East Ninth Street in New York City in 1951. Besides the painters and sculptors of the period the New York School of Abstract expressionism also generated a number of supportive poets, including Frank O'Hara and photographers such as Aaron Siskind and Fred McDarrah, (whose book The Artist's World in Pictures documented the New York School during the 1950s), and filmmakers—notably Robert Frank—as well.

text: Although the abstract expressionist school spread quickly throughout the United States, the major centers of this style were New York City and the San Francisco Bay area of California.

text: Art critics of the post–World War II era[edit]

text: At a certain moment the canvas began to appear to one American painter after another as an arena in which to act. What was to go on the canvas was not a picture but an event.

text: In the 1940s there were not only few galleries (The Art of This Century, Pierre Matisse Gallery, Julien Levy Gallery and a few others) but also few critics who were willing to follow the work of the New York Vanguard. There were also a few artists with a literary background, among them Robert Motherwell and Barnett Newman, who functioned as critics as well.

text: While New York and the world were yet unfamiliar with the New York avant-garde by the late 1940s, most of the artists who have become household names today had their well-established patron critics: Clement Greenberg advocated Jackson Pollock and the color field painters like Clyfford Still, Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, Adolph Gottlieb and Hans Hofmann; Harold Rosenberg seemed to prefer the action painters such as Willem de Kooning and Franz Kline, as well as the seminal paintings of Arshile Gorky; Thomas B. Hess, the managing editor of ARTnews, championed Willem de Kooning.

text: The new critics elevated their protégés by casting other artists as "followers"[11] or ignoring those who did not serve their promotional goal.

text: In 1958, Mark Tobey became the first American painter since Whistler (1895) to win top prize at the Venice Biennale.[12]

text: Barnett Newman, a late member of the Uptown Group, wrote catalogue forewords and reviews, and by the late 1940s became an exhibiting artist at Betty Parsons Gallery. His first solo show was in 1948. Soon after his first exhibition, Barnett Newman remarked in one of the Artists' Sessions at Studio 35: "We are in the process of making the world, to a certain extent, in our own image."[13] Utilizing his writing skills, Newman fought every step of the way to reinforce his newly established image as an artist and to promote his work. An example is his letter on April 9, 1955, "Letter to Sidney Janis: — it is true that Rothko talks the fighter. He fights, however, to submit to the philistine world. My struggle against bourgeois society has involved the total rejection of it."[14]

text: Strangely the person thought to have had most to do with the promotion of this style was a New York Trotskyist; Clement Greenberg. As long-time art critic for the Partisan Review and The Nation, he became an early and literate proponent of abstract expressionism. The well-heeled artist Robert Motherwell joined Greenberg in promoting a style that fit the political climate and the intellectual rebelliousness of the era.

text: Clement Greenberg proclaimed abstract expressionism and Jackson Pollock in particular as the epitome of aesthetic value. He supported Pollock's work on formalistic grounds as simply the best painting of its day and the culmination of an art tradition going back via Cubism and Cézanne to Monet, in which painting became ever-'purer' and more concentrated in what was 'essential' to it, the making of marks on a flat surface.[15]

text: Jackson Pollock's work has always polarised critics. Harold Rosenberg spoke of the transformation of painting into an existential drama in Pollock's work, in which "what was to go on the canvas was not a picture but an event". "The big moment came when it was decided to paint 'just to paint'. The gesture on the canvas was a gesture of liberation from value—political, aesthetic, moral."[16]

text: One of the most vocal critics of abstract expressionism at the time was New York Times art critic John Canaday. Meyer Schapiro and Leo Steinberg along with Clement Greenberg and Harold Rosenberg were important art historians of the post-war era who voiced support for abstract expressionism. During the early-to-mid-sixties younger art critics Michael Fried, Rosalind Krauss, and Robert Hughes added considerable insights into the critical dialectic that continues to grow around abstract expressionism.

text: History[edit]

text: World War II and the Post-War period[edit]

text: During the period leading up to and during World War II, modernist artists, writers, and poets, as well as important collectors and dealers, fled Europe and the onslaught of the Nazis for safe haven in the United States. Many of those who didn't flee perished. Among the artists and collectors who arrived in New York during the war (some with help from Varian Fry) were Hans Namuth, Yves Tanguy, Kay Sage, Max Ernst, Jimmy Ernst, Peggy Guggenheim, Leo Castelli, Marcel Duchamp, André Masson, Roberto Matta, André Breton, Marc Chagall, Jacques Lipchitz, Fernand Léger, and Piet Mondrian. A few artists, notably Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, and Pierre Bonnard remained in France and survived.

text: The post-war period left the capitals of Europe in upheaval, with an urgency to economically and physically rebuild and to politically regroup. In Paris, formerly the center of European culture and capital of the art world, the climate for art was a disaster, and New York replaced Paris as the new center of the art world. In Europe after the war there was the continuation of Surrealism, Cubism, Dada, and the works of Matisse. Also in Europe, Art brut,[17] and Lyrical Abstraction or Tachisme (the European equivalent to Abstract expressionism) took hold of the newest generation. Serge Poliakoff, Nicolas de Staël, Georges Mathieu, Vieira da Silva, Jean Dubuffet, Yves Klein, Pierre Soulages and Jean Messagier, among others are considered important figures in post-war European painting.[18] In the United States, a new generation of American artists began to emerge and to dominate the world stage, and they were called Abstract Expressionists.

text: Gorky, Hofmann, and Graham[edit]

text: The 1940s in New York City heralded the triumph of American Abstract expressionism, a modernist movement that combined lessons learned from Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Surrealism, Joan Miró, Cubism, Fauvism, and early Modernism via great teachers in America such as Hans Hofmann from Germany and John D. Graham from Ukraine. Graham's influence on American art during the early 1940s was particularly visible in the work of Arshile Gorky, Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, and Richard Pousette-Dart among others. Gorky's contributions to American and world art are difficult to overestimate. His work as lyrical abstraction[20][21][22][23][24] was a "new language.[20] He "lit the way for two generations of American artists".[20] The painterly spontaneity of mature works such as "The Liver is the Cock's Comb", "The Betrothal II", and "One Year the Milkweed" immediately prefigured Abstract expressionism, and leaders in the New York School have acknowledged Gorky's considerable influence. The early work of Hyman Bloom was also influential.[25] American artists also benefited from the presence of Piet Mondrian, Fernand Léger, Max Ernst, and the André Breton group, Pierre Matisse's gallery, and Peggy Guggenheim's gallery The Art of This Century, as well as other factors. Hans Hofmann in particular as teacher, mentor, and artist was both important and influential to the development and success of abstract expressionism in the United States. Among Hofmann's protégés was Clement Greenberg, who became an enormously influential voice for American painting, and among his students was Lee Krasner, who introduced her teacher, Hofmann, to her husband, Jackson Pollock.

text: Pollock and Abstract influences[edit]

text: During the late 1940s, Jackson Pollock's radical approach to painting revolutionized the potential for all Contemporary art that followed him. To some extent, Pollock realized that the journey toward making a work of art was as important as the work of art itself. Like Pablo Picasso's innovative reinventions of painting and sculpture near the turn of the century via Cubism and constructed sculpture, with influences as disparate as Navaho sand paintings, surrealism, Jungian analysis, and Mexican mural art,[26] Pollock redefined what it was to produce art. His move away from easel painting and conventionality was a liberating signal to the artists of his era and to all that came after. Artists realized that Jackson Pollock's process—the placing of unstretched raw canvas on the floor where it could be attacked from all four sides using artist materials and industrial materials; linear skeins of paint dripped and thrown; drawing, staining, brushing; imagery and non-imagery—essentially took art-making beyond any prior boundary. Abstract expressionism in general expanded and developed the definitions and possibilities that artists had available for the creation of new works of art.

text: The other Abstract expressionists followed Pollock's breakthrough with new breakthroughs of their own. In a sense the innovations of Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, Mark Rothko, Philip Guston, Hans Hofmann, Clyfford Still, Barnett Newman, Ad Reinhardt, Richard Pousette-Dart, Robert Motherwell, Peter Voulkos, and others opened the floodgates to the diversity and scope of all the art that followed them. The new art movements of the 1960s essentially followed the lead of abstract expressionism and in particular the innovations of Pollock, De Kooning, Rothko, Hofmann, Reinhardt, and Newman. The radical Anti-Formalist movements of the 1960s and 1970s including Fluxus, Neo-Dada, Conceptual art, and the feminist art movement can be traced to the innovations of abstract expressionism. Rereadings into abstract art, done by art historians such as Linda Nochlin,[27] Griselda Pollock[28] and Catherine de Zegher[29] critically shows, however, that pioneer women artists who have produced major innovations in modern art had been ignored by the official accounts of its history, but finally began to achieve long overdue recognition in the wake of the abstract expressionist movement of the 1940s and 1950s. Abstract expressionism emerged as a major art movement in New York City during the 1950s and thereafter several leading art galleries began to include the abstract expressionists in exhibitions and as regulars in their rosters. Some of those prominent 'uptown' galleries included: the Charles Egan Gallery,[30] the Sidney Janis Gallery,[31] the Betty Parsons Gallery,[32] the Kootz Gallery,[33] the Tibor de Nagy Gallery, the Stable Gallery, the Leo Castelli Gallery as well as others; and several downtown galleries known at the time as the Tenth Street galleries exhibited many emerging younger artists working in the abstract expressionist vein.

text: Action painting[edit]

text: Action painting was a style widespread from the 1940s until the early 1960s, and is closely associated with abstract expressionism (some critics have used the terms action painting and abstract expressionism interchangeably). A comparison is often drawn between the American action painting and the French tachisme.

text: The term was coined by the American critic Harold Rosenberg in 1952[34] and signaled a major shift in the aesthetic perspective of New York School painters and critics. According to Rosenberg the canvas was "an arena in which to act". While abstract expressionists such as Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline and Willem de Kooning had long been outspoken in their view of a painting as an arena within which to come to terms with the act of creation, earlier critics sympathetic to their cause, like Clement Greenberg, focused on their works' "objectness." To Greenberg, it was the physicality of the paintings' clotted and oil-caked surfaces that was the key to understanding them as documents of the artists' existential struggle.

text: Rosenberg's critique shifted the emphasis from the object to the struggle itself, with the finished painting being only the physical manifestation, a kind of residue, of the actual work of art, which was in the act or process of the painting's creation. This spontaneous activity was the "action" of the painter, through arm and wrist movement, painterly gestures, brushstrokes, thrown paint, splashed, stained, scumbled and dripped. The painter would sometimes let the paint drip onto the canvas, while rhythmically dancing, or even standing in the canvas, sometimes letting the paint fall according to the subconscious mind, thus letting the unconscious part of the psyche assert and express itself. All this, however, is difficult to explain or interpret because it is a supposed unconscious manifestation of the act of pure creation.[35]

text: In practice, the term abstract expressionism is applied to any number of artists working (mostly) in New York who had quite different styles, and even applied to work which is not especially abstract nor expressionist. Pollock's energetic action paintings, with their "busy" feel, are different both technically and aesthetically, to the violent and grotesque Women series of Willem de Kooning. (As seen above) Woman V is one of a series of six paintings made by de Kooning between 1950 and 1953 that depict a three-quarter-length female figure. He began the first of these paintings, Woman I, collection: The Museum of Modern Art, New York City, in June 1950, repeatedly changing and painting out the image until January or February 1952, when the painting was abandoned unfinished. The art historian Meyer Schapiro saw the painting in de Kooning's studio soon afterwards and encouraged the artist to persist. De Kooning's response was to begin three other paintings on the same theme; Woman II, collection: The Museum of Modern Art, New York City, Woman III, Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, Woman IV, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri. During the summer of 1952, spent at East Hampton, de Kooning further explored the theme through drawings and pastels. He may have finished work on Woman I by the end of June, or possibly as late as November 1952, and probably the other three women pictures were concluded at much the same time.[36] The Woman series are decidedly figurative paintings.

text: Another important artist is Franz Kline, as demonstrated by his painting Number 2 (1954) (see above). As with Jackson Pollock and other abstract expressionists, Kline was labelled an "action painter because of his seemingly spontaneous and intense style, focusing less, or not at all, on figures or imagery, but on the actual brush strokes and use of canvas. Automatic writing was an important vehicle for action painters Franz Kline (in his black and white paintings), Jackson Pollock, Mark Tobey and Cy Twombly, who used gesture, surface, and line to create calligraphic, linear symbols and skeins that resemble language, and resonate as powerful manifestations from the collective unconscious.[37] Robert Motherwell in his Elegy to the Spanish Republic series also painted powerful black and white paintings using gesture, surface and symbol evoking powerful emotional charges.

text: Meanwhile, other action painters, notably Willem de Kooning, Arshile Gorky, Norman Bluhm, Joan Mitchell, and James Brooks, (see gallery) used imagery via either abstract landscape or as expressionistic visions of the figure to articulate their highly personal and powerful evocations. James Brooks' paintings were particularly poetic and highly prescient in relationship to Lyrical Abstraction that became prominent in the late 1960s and the 1970s.[38]

text: Color field[edit]

text: Clyfford Still, Barnett Newman, Adolph Gottlieb and the serenely shimmering blocks of color in Mark Rothko's work (which is not what would usually be called expressionist and which Rothko denied was abstract), are classified as abstract expressionists, albeit from what Clement Greenberg termed the Color field direction of abstract expressionism. Both Hans Hofmann (see gallery) and Robert Motherwell (gallery) can be comfortably described as practitioners of action painting and Color field painting. In the 1940s Richard Pousette-Dart's tightly constructed imagery often depended upon themes of mythology and mysticism; as did the paintings of Adolph Gottlieb, and Jackson Pollock in that decade as well.

text: Color Field painting initially referred to a particular type of abstract expressionism, especially the work of Mark Rothko, Clyfford Still, Barnett Newman, Robert Motherwell, Adolph Gottlieb, Ad Reinhardt and several series of paintings by Joan Miró. Art critic Clement Greenberg perceived Color Field painting as related to but different from Action painting. The Color Field painters sought to rid their art of superfluous rhetoric. Artists like Robert Motherwell, Clyfford Still, Mark Rothko, Adolph Gottlieb, Hans Hofmann, Helen Frankenthaler, Sam Francis, Mark Tobey, and especially Ad Reinhardt and Barnett Newman, whose masterpiece Vir heroicus sublimis is in the collection of MoMA, used greatly reduced references to nature, and they painted with a highly articulated and psychological use of color. In general these artists eliminated recognizable imagery, in the case of Rothko and Gottlieb sometimes using symbol and sign as replacement of imagery.[39] Certain artists quoted references to past or present art, but in general color field painting presents abstraction as an end in itself. In pursuing this direction of modern art, artists wanted to present each painting as one unified, cohesive, monolithic image.

text: In distinction to the emotional energy and gestural surface marks of abstract expressionists such as Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning, the Color Field painters initially appeared to be cool and austere, effacing the individual mark in favor of large, flat areas of color, which these artists considered to be the essential nature of visual abstraction, along with the actual shape of the canvas, which later in the 1960s Frank Stella in particular achieved in unusual ways with combinations of curved and straight edges. However Color Field painting has proven to be both sensual and deeply expressive albeit in a different way from gestural Abstract expressionism.

text: Although Abstract expressionism spread quickly throughout the United States, the major centers of this style were New York City and California, especially in the New York School, and the San Francisco Bay area. Abstract expressionist paintings share certain characteristics, including the use of large canvases, an "all-over" approach, in which the whole canvas is treated with equal importance (as opposed to the center being of more interest than the edges). The canvas as the arena became a credo of Action painting, while the integrity of the picture plane became a credo of the Color field painters. Younger artists began exhibiting their abstract expressionist related paintings during the 1950s as well including Alfred Leslie, Sam Francis, Joan Mitchell, Helen Frankenthaler, Cy Twombly, Milton Resnick, Michael Goldberg, Norman Bluhm, Grace Hartigan, Friedel Dzubas, and Robert Goodnough among others.

text: Although Pollock is closely associated with Action Painting because of his style, technique, and his painterly touch and his physical application of paint, art critics have likened Pollock to both Action painting and color field painting. Another critical view advanced by Clement Greenberg connects Pollock's allover canvasses to the large-scale Water Lilies of Claude Monet done during the 1920s. Greenberg, art critic Michael Fried, and others have observed that the overall feeling in Pollock's most famous works – his drip paintings – read as vast fields of built-up linear elements often reading as vast complexes of similar valued paint skeins that read as all over fields of color and drawing, and are related to the mural-sized late Monets that are constructed of many passages of close valued brushed and scumbled marks that also read as close valued fields of color and drawing that Monet used in building his picture surfaces. Pollock's use of all-over composition lend a philosophical and a physical connection to the way the color field painters like Newman, Rothko and Still construct their unbroken and in Still's case broken surfaces. In several paintings that Pollock painted after his classic drip painting period of 1947–1950, he used the technique of staining fluid oil paint and house paint into raw canvas. During 1951 he produced a series of semi-figurative black stain paintings, and in 1952 he produced stain paintings using color. In his November 1952 exhibition at the Sidney Janis Gallery in New York City Pollock showed Number 12, 1952, a large, masterful stain painting that resembles a brightly colored stained landscape (with an overlay of broadly dripped dark paint); the painting was acquired from the exhibition by Nelson Rockefeller for his personal collection. In 1960 the painting was severely damaged by fire in the Governors Mansion in Albany that also severely damaged an Arshile Gorky painting and several other works in the Rockefeller collection. However, by 1999 it had been restored and was installed in Albany Mall.[40][41]

text: While Arshile Gorky is considered to be one of the founding fathers of abstract expressionism and a surrealist, he was also one of the first painters of the New York School who used the technique of staining. Gorky created broad fields of vivid, open, unbroken color that he used in many of his paintings as grounds. In Gorky's most effective and accomplished paintings between the years 1941–1948, he consistently used intense stained fields of color, often letting the paint run and drip, under and around his familiar lexicon of organic and biomorphic shapes and delicate lines. Another abstract expressionist whose works in the 1940s call to mind the stain paintings of the 1960s and the 1970s is James Brooks. Brooks regularly used stain as a technique in his paintings from the late 1940s. Brooks began diluting his oil paint in order to have fluid colors with which to pour and drip and stain into the mostly raw canvas that he used. These works often combined calligraphy and abstract shapes. During the final three decades of his career, Sam Francis' style of large-scale bright Abstract expressionism was closely associated with Color field painting. His paintings straddled both camps within the abstract expressionist rubric, Action painting and Color Field painting.

text: Having seen Jackson Pollock's 1951 paintings of thinned black oil paint stained into raw canvas, Helen Frankenthaler began to produce stain paintings in varied oil colors on raw canvas in 1952. Her most famous painting from that period is Mountains and Sea(as seen below). She is one of the originators of the Color Field movement that emerged in the late 1950s.[43] Frankenthaler also studied with Hans Hofmann.

text: Hofmann's paintings are a symphony of color as seen in The Gate, 1959–1960. Hofmann was renowned not only as an artist but also as a teacher of art, both in his native Germany and later in the U.S. Hans Hofmann, who came to the United States from Germany in the early 1930s, brought with him the legacy of Modernism. Hofmann was a young artist working in Paris who painted there before World War I. Hofmann worked in Paris with Robert Delaunay, and he knew firsthand the innovative work of both Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse. Matisse's work had an enormous influence on him, and on his understanding of the expressive language of color and the potentiality of abstraction. Hofmann was one of the first theorists of color field painting, and his theories were influential to artists and to critics, particularly to Clement Greenberg, as well as to others during the 1930s and 1940s. In 1953 Morris Louis and Kenneth Noland were both profoundly influenced by Helen Frankenthaler's stain paintings after visiting her studio in New York City. Returning to Washington, DC., they began to produce the major works that created the color field movement in the late 1950s.[44]

text: In 1972 then Metropolitan Museum of Art curator Henry Geldzahler said:

text: Clement Greenberg included the work of both Morris Louis and Kenneth Noland in a show that he did at the Kootz Gallery in the early 1950s. Clem was the first to see their potential. He invited them up to New York in 1953, I think it was, to Helen's studio to see a painting that she had just done called Mountains and Sea, a very, very beautiful painting, which was in a sense, out of Pollock and out of Gorky. It also was one of the first stain pictures, one of the first large field pictures in which the stain technique was used, perhaps the first one. Louis and Noland saw the picture unrolled on the floor of her studio and went back to Washington, DC., and worked together for a while, working at the implications of this kind of painting.[45][46]

text: In the 1960s after abstract expressionism[edit]

text: In abstract painting during the 1950s and 1960s, several new directions, like the Hard-edge painting exemplified by John McLaughlin, emerged. Meanwhile, as a reaction against the subjectivism of Abstract expressionism, other forms of Geometric abstraction began to appear in artist studios and in radical avant-garde circles. Clement Greenberg became the voice of Post-painterly abstraction; by curating an influential exhibition of new painting that toured important art museums throughout the United States in 1964. Color field painting, Hard-edge painting and Lyrical Abstraction[47] emerged as radical new directions.

text: Abstract expressionism and the Cold War[edit]

text: Since the mid-1970s it has been argued by revisionist historians that the style attracted the attention, in the early 1950s, of the CIA, who saw it as representative of the USA as a haven of free thought and free markets, as well as a challenge to both the socialist realist styles prevalent in communist nations and the dominance of the European art markets.[48] The book by Frances Stonor Saunders,[49] The Cultural Cold War—The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters,[50] (published in the UK as Who Paid the Piper?: CIA and the Cultural Cold War) details how the CIA financed and organized the promotion of American abstract expressionists as part of cultural imperialism via the Congress for Cultural Freedom from 1950 to 1967. Notably Robert Motherwell's series Elegy to the Spanish Republic addressed some of those political issues. Tom Braden, founding chief of the CIA's International Organizations Division (IOD) and ex-executive secretary of the Museum of Modern Art said in an interview, "I think it was the most important division that the agency had, and I think that it played an enormous role in the Cold War."[51]

text: Against this revisionist tradition, an essay by Michael Kimmelman, chief art critic of The New York Times, called Revisiting the Revisionists: The Modern, Its Critics and the Cold War, argues that much of this information (as well as the revisionists' interpretation of it) concerning what was happening on the American art scene during the 1940s and 50s is flatly false, or at best (contrary to the revisionists' avowed historiographic principles) decontextualized.[52] Other books on the subject include Art in the Cold War by Christine Lindey, which also describes the art of the Soviet Union at the same time; and Pollock and After edited by Francis Frascina, which reprinted the Kimmelman article.

text: Consequences[edit]

text: Canadian painter Jean-Paul Riopelle (1923–2002), a member of the Montreal-based surrealist-inspired group Les Automatistes, helped introduce a related style of abstract impressionism to the Parisian art world from 1949. Michel Tapié's groundbreaking book, Un Art Autre (1952), was also enormously influential in this regard. Tapié was also a curator and exhibition organizer who promoted the works of Pollock and Hans Hofmann in Europe. By the 1960s, the movement's initial affect had been assimilated, yet its methods and proponents remained highly influential in art, affecting profoundly the work of many artists who followed. Abstract expressionism preceded Tachisme, Color Field painting, Lyrical Abstraction, Fluxus, Pop Art, Minimalism, Postminimalism, Neo-expressionism, and the other movements of the sixties and seventies and it influenced all those later movements that evolved. Movements which were direct responses to, and rebellions against abstract expressionism began with Hard-edge painting (Frank Stella, Robert Indiana and others) and Pop artists, notably Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg and Roy Lichtenstein who achieved prominence in the US, accompanied by Richard Hamilton in Britain. Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns in the US formed a bridge between abstract expressionism and Pop art. Minimalism was exemplified by artists such as Donald Judd, Robert Mangold and Agnes Martin.

text: However, many painters, such as Jules Olitski, Joan Mitchell and Antoni Tàpies continued to work in the abstract expressionist style for many years, extending and expanding its visual and philosophical implications, as many abstract artists continue to do today, in styles described as Lyrical Abstraction, Neo-expressionist and others.

text: In the years after World War II, a group of New York artists started one of the first true schools of artists in America, bringing about a new era in American artwork: abstract expressionism. This led to the American art boom that brought about styles such as Pop Art. This also helped to make New York into a cultural and artistic hub.[53]

text: Abstract expressionist value expression over perfection, vitality over finish, fluctuation over repose, the unknown over the known, the veiled over the clear, the individual over society and the inner over the outer.

text: Major sculpture[edit]

text:
Richard Stankiewicz, Detail of Figure; 1956; steel, iron, and concrete; in the collection of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden

Alexander Calder, Red Mobile, 1956, Painted sheet metal and metal rods, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

John Chamberlain, S, 1959, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC.

Isamu Noguchi, The Cry, 1959, Kröller-Müller Museum Sculpture Park, Otterlo, Netherlands

Louise Bourgeois, Maman, 1999, outside Museo Guggenheim

tag: ul

text: List of abstract expressionists[edit]

text: Major artists[edit]

text:
Albert Alcalay
Charles Alston
Ruth Asawa
Alice Baber
William Baziotes
Norman Bluhm
Louise Bourgeois
Ernest Briggs
James Brooks
Fritz Bultman
Hans Burkhardt
Jack Bush
Lawrence Calcagno
Alexander Calder
Nicolas Carone
Giorgio Cavallon
John Chamberlain
Joseph Cornell
Dorothy Dehner
Jean Dubuffet
Elaine de Kooning
Willem de Kooning
Beauford Delaney
Robert De Niro, Sr.
Richard Diebenkorn
Mark di Suvero
James Budd Dixon
Enrico Donati
Edward Dugmore
Friedel Dzubas
Jimmy Ernst
Herbert Ferber
John Ferren
Perle Fine
Sam Francis
Jane Frank
Helen Frankenthaler
Sonia Gechtoff
Michael Goldberg
Robert Goodnough
Arshile Gorky
Joseph Goto
Adolph Gottlieb
Morris Graves
Cleve Gray
Philip Guston
Raoul Hague
David Hare
Grace Hartigan
Hans Hofmann
Paul Horiuchi
John Hultberg
Paul Jenkins
James Kelly
Earl Kerkam
Franz Kline
Albert Kotin
Lee Krasner
Walter Kuhlman
Ibram Lassaw
Alfred Leslie
John Harrison Levee
Norman Lewis
Richard Lippold
Seymour Lipton
Frank Lobdell
Morris Louis
Conrad Marca-Relli
Nicholas Marsicano
Mercedes Matter
Joan Mitchell
Robert Motherwell
Louise Nevelson
Barnett Newman
Isamu Noguchi
Kenzo Okada
John Opper
Stephen Pace
Ray Parker
Phillip Pavia
Jackson Pollock
Fuller Potter
Richard Pousette-Dart
Ad Reinhardt
Milton Resnick
Robert Richenburg
George Rickey
Jean-Paul Riopelle
William Ronald
James Rosati
Theodore Roszak
Mark Rothko
Anne Ryan
Louis Schanker
Jon Schueler
Charles Seliger
Harold Shapinsky
Thomas Sills
David Smith
Theodoros Stamos
Richard Stankiewicz
Joe Stefanelli
Hedda Sterne
Clyfford Still
George Stillman
Reuben Tam
Alma Thomas
Mark Tobey
Bradley Walker Tomlin
Cy Twombly
Jack Tworkov
Esteban Vicente
Peter Voulkos
Corinne Michelle West
John von Wicht
Hale Woodruff
Emerson Woelffer
Taro Yamamoto
Manouchehr Yektai

text: Other artists[edit]

text:
Satoru Abe
Bumpei Akaji
Olga Albizu
Karel Appel
Rosemarie Beck
William Brice
Alexander Bogen
Charles Ragland Bunnell
Gretna Campbell
Mary Callery
Chu Teh-Chun
Edward Clark
Alfred L. Copley (aka L. Alcopley)
Edward Corbett
Sari Dienes
Isami Doi
Lynne Mapp Drexler
Lucio Fontana
Herbert Gentry[54]
Sam Gilliam
Joseph Glasco
John D. Graham
Stephen Greene
Elaine Hamilton
Hans Hartung
Saburo Hasegawa
Al Held
Raymond Hendler
Gino Hollander
John Hoyland
Ralph Iwamoto
William Ivey
Jasper Johns
Karl Kasten
Keichi Kimura
Sueko Kimura
Frances Kornbluth
André Lanskoy
John Levee
Michael Loew
Knox Martin
Georges Mathieu
Herbert Matter
George McNeil
Jean Messagier
Jay Meuser
George Miyasaki
Seong Moy
Jan Müller
Robert Natkin
Tetsuo Ochikubo
Frank Okada
Jerry Okimoto
Jules Olitski
Pat Passlof
Irene Rice-Pereira
Earle M. Pilgrim
Robert Rauschenberg
Larry Rivers
Julio Rosado del Valle
Jack Roth
Tadashi Sato
Jon Schueler
Pablo Serrano
Sarai Sherman
Morita Shiryū
Vieira da Silva
Aaron Siskind
Tony Smith
Pierre Soulages
Nicolas de Staël
Frank Stella
Ary Stillman
Kumi Sugaï (fr)
Stuart Sutcliffe
Augustus Vincent Tack
Toshiko Takaezu
Antoni Tàpies
Harry Tsuchidana
Tony Tuckson
Nína Tryggvadóttir
Bram van Velde
Don Van Vliet
Cora Kelley Ward
Ulfert Wilke
Wols
Tseng Yu-ho
Zao Wou Ki