Art Term

Action painters

The term action painters is applied to artists working from the 1940s until the early 1960s whose approach to painting emphasized the physical act of painting as an essential part of the finished work

Jackson Pollock
Number 23 (1948)
Tate

Their process, involved splashing, using gestural brushstrokes and dripping paint onto canvas rather than carefully applying it. The term 'action painting' was coined by Harold Rosenberg in his groundbreaking article The American Action Painters published in ARTnews in December 1952.

Rosenberg was referring to artists such as Arshile Gorky, Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning, and Jackson Pollock.

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Selected artists in the collection

Selected artworks in the collection

Action Painters at Tate

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