Abstract Expressionism was a movement in art in the post–World War II years that turned New York into the center of the art world and American artists into international icons. Even so, the movement itself was always presented as overwhelmingly male, and the women who participated in it—and who were extremely influential in the shaping of it—were often ignored or sidelined. With a grand gesture, the Denver Art Museum helped to correct that unfortunate slant. The venerable Colorado museum’s show last summer, “Women of Abstract Expressionism,” featured 51 paintings by 12 women artists who have not gotten recognition as a group before—from Elaine de Koonig, the wife of Willem, whose work she championed; to Helen Frankenthaler, married to Robert Motherwell; to Lee Krasner, overshadowed by her art-star husband, Jackson Pollock; as well as many of their peers, from familiar to obscure: Joan Mitchell, Mary Abbott, Perle Fine, Jay DeFeo, Ethel Schwabacher, Judith Godwin, Grace Hartigan, Deborah Remington and Sonia Gechtoff. Below is PROVOKR’s sampling of the sensuous and enveloping works that were on view.
Apropos or Untitled (1953), by Deborah Remington. Oil on canvas, 39 x 51 inches. Denver Art Museum. Courtesy Deborah Remington Charitable Trust for the Visual Arts.
Deborah Remington. Courtesy Deborah Remington Charitable Trust for the Visual Arts.
The Beginning (1960), by Sonia Gechtoff. Oil on canvas, 69 x 83 inches. Denver Art Museum. @ Sonia Gechtoff.
Sonia Gechtoff at Canal Street Studio, New York, about 1960–61. Image courtesy Sonia Gechtoff.
