Lyrical Abstraction

Lyrical Abstraction is an important American abstract art movement that emerged in New York City, Los Angeles, Washington DC during the 1960s - 1970s. The term itself was originally coined by Larry Aldrich in 1969.

Lyrical abstraction is characterized by intuitive and loose paint handling, spontaneous expression, illusionist space, acrylic staining, process, occasional imagery, and other painterly and newer technological techniques. Lyrical Abstraction led the way away from minimalism in painting and toward a new freer expressionism. Painters who directly reacted against the dominating Formalist, Minimalist, and Pop Art and Geometric Abstraction styles of the sixties, turned to new, experimental, loose, painterly, expressive, pictorial and abstract painting styles. Many of them had been Minimalists, working with various monochromatic, geometric styles, and whose paintings publicly evolved into new abstract painterly motifs.

Some of the renowned Lyrical Abstraction artists are: Ronnie Landfield, Helen Frankenthaler, Paul Jenkins, Ronald Davis, and Dan Christensen.

See the works in the Gallery!