Pop Painterly Abstraction

Post Painterly Abstraction is a term invented by the American art critic Clement Greenberg (1909-1984) for an exhibition of the same name, which called attention to a less energetic and more colorful direction in art. He took the word ‘painterly’ (in German ‘malerisch') from the great Swiss art historian Heinrich Wölfflin (1864–1945), who had discussed it in his book Kunstgeschichtliche Grundbegriffe (1915), translated as Principles of Art History (1932). By it he understood ‘the blurred, broken, loose definition of colour and contour; ' Post-Painterly Abstractionists, in contrast, moved towards ‘physical openness of design, or toward linear clarity, or toward both'.  It was precipitated by artists  Gene Davis, Paul Feeley, John Ferren, Sam Francis, Helen Frankenthaler, Alfred Jensen, Morris Louis, Jules Olitski an Frank Stella. 

                                                          'Bridge' by Kenneth Noland, 1964

Frank Stella's 'Harran II', 1967