Women and the Void: Abstract Expressionism on Paper

About

• Mary Abbott (1921-2019) was born in New York. She was one of three women invited to be part of ‘The Club’, founded by Phillip Pavia. Recently, she was one of only three living artists who exhibited in the 2016 Denver Art Museum show, Women of Abstract Expressionism. Her work is inspired by her time spent in Haiti and Saint Croix, both places where she briefly lived.

• Dusti Bongé (1903-1993) is considered Mississippi’s first Abstract Expressionist and first Modern artist. Inspired by surrealist motifs, her work explores conceptual themes such as ‘The Void’.

• Jay DeFeo (1929-1989) was born Mary Joan DeFeo in New Hampshire. DeFeo worked across mediums, including drawings, paintings, sculpture, jewellery, photographs, photocopies, collages, and photo collages. Despite resisting the label ‘Abstract Expressionist’, many have come to see her work as associated with the expressive experimentalism of the movement.

• Perle Fine (1905-1988) was born in Boston, Massachusetts. Her parents were Russian immigrants. Her work capitalises on the aesthetics of modern European masters to inform her use of colour, form, and line. Exhibiting widely across America, Fine’s work has been incorporated into many prominent, international collections.

• Elaine De Kooning (1918-1989) was born in New York. Working across abstraction and figuration, she was one of eight women who participated in Leo Castelli’s acclaimed 1951 exhibition Ninth Street Show. She was married to fellow Abstract Expressionist Willem de Kooning.

• Anne Ryan (1989-1954) was born in Hoboken, New Jersey. Although working predominantly in painting and drawing, she took imaginative departure from the abstract collage of Kurt Schwitters later in life. Ryan was one of the oldest women associated with the New York school, also exhibiting in Castelli’s 1951 Ninth Street Show.

• Alma Thomas (1891-1978) lived and worked in Washington DC. She is known for her brightly coloured, densely patterned painting. She was the first Black woman to have a solo show at New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art in 1972.

• Michael West (1908–1991) also known as Corrinne Michael West, was born in Chicago, Illinois. West was one of the few members of the New York Art School movement, and began to use the moniker Michael, or Mikael in 1936 in order to pursue better opportunities within the Arts.