Desert Moon, 1955 © Pollock-Krasner Foundation (1955/1955) by Lee Krasner and The Pollock-Krasner FoundationBarbican Centre
Abstract painting can surprise, delight, and infuriate. It hopes to express the inexpressible using color, line, and shape to explore feelings, actions, and sometimes even sound. It's a style that has spread all around the world. Do you know where the following artists are from?
Glyph #15 (1975) by Sam Gilliam, Jr.Hammonds House Museum
1. Sam Gilliam
Gilliam creates color-field pieces, often draping his canvases to create warped, unsettling works. This piece is made to resemble cells under a microscope, drawing a link between abstract visuals and the fundamentals of human life. Where is Gilliam from?
Washington, D.C.
Part of the famous 'Washington School' of abstract painters that included Helen Frankenthaler, Gilliam did most of his defining work in the US capital. He was, however, born in Tupelo, Mississippi.
Composition VII (1913) by Vasily KandinskyThe State Tretyakov Gallery
2. Wassily Kandinsky
The man who supposedly started it all. Abstract painting's origins are disputed, but Kandinsky himself claimed to be the first to paint in purely non-figurative forms. Did you know he could see sound? He had synaesthesia, which influenced his art. But where is he from?
Moscow
Kandinsky was born and studied in Moscow, Russia, though he spent his childhood in the Ukrainian city of Odessa and later moved to Germany.
Convergence (1952) by Jackson PollockAlbright-Knox Art Gallery
3. Jackson Pollock
The man who painted with drips, Jackson Pollock, has become one of the most famous and renowned abstract painters in the world. The lively activity of his gestural paint-splatters captivated the art world in the 1960s. Where was this painting made?
New York
Pollock was part of a thriving scene of painters and poets in New York City in the 1960s.
Dove No. 2 (1915) by Hilma af KlintOlomouc Museum of Art
4. Hilma af Klint
Another painter who has a strong claim to being the original abstract expressionist, Hilma af Klint painted mystical, colorful forms influenced by her occult practices and séances. Do you know where she called home?
Sweden
Klint was the daughter of a high-ranking naval commander in Sweden, and was born at Karlberg Palace near Stockholm. The idyllic natural surroundings influenced her landscape painting, which she exhibited during her life, suppressing the abstract works for which she is now known.
5. Piet Mondrian
Obsessed with the purity of shapes and forms, Mondrian painted neat geometric patterns in block colors. Do you know where he is from?
The Netherlands
Mondrian is Dutch, and is another artist who began by painting figurative landscape works before pivoting to purely abstract compositions later in life.
