Streams of Consciousness & Material Culture: Abstract Expressionism at the Met

Material Culture: Abstract Expressionism at the Met

Abstract Expressionism and Other Modern Works: The Muriel Kallis Steinberg Newman Collection in The Metropolitan Museum of Art captured the unprecedented purity of revolutionary abstract artists working in and around Washington Square Park. Ms. Marci Kwon provided in depth insight into the sublimely bombastic world of Abstract Expressionists working in and around New York City during the 1940’s. The Met exhibition presented fifty-five works that were assembled by Muriel Kallis Steinberg Newman, who was one of the most forward thinking and astute collectors of her time. The exhibition catalogue includes: Jackson Pollock’s Number 28, 1950, which stands as a prime example of the artist’s most abstract work. In addition, Attic, 1929, by Willem de Kooning and Franz Kline’s Nijinsky (1950) stand as visceral expressions derived from the intuitive, undisturbed streams of consciousness. Artists like Mark Rothko created their own visual language by which they were able to record their feelings about society and the human condition. Artists like Jackson Pollock, Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg worked exclusively in and around Washington Square Park and were known as ‘The Club.’ They shared studio space and interacted daily in dynamic meetings at infamous cafeteria and bars around the Washington Square Park.

The Muriel Kallis Steinberg Newman Collection is the only existing collection of Abstract Expressionist works that were amassed at the time of their creation. I was fascinated by Ms. Steinberg’s collecting philosophy and her vision. Ms. Kwon extrapolated on this avant-garde collector who saw the Abstract Expressionists as social revolutionaries whose work, through medium, color, form, scale and texture reflected a new vision. Ms. Newman was known for her intelligence and enthusiasm and merged her history as a painter, her love for New York, and her intuitive eye for modern art into one of the most important collections of Abstract Expressionist art in the world. She was born in Chicago in 1914 and attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Institute of Design, and the University of Chicago. In 1938, she married Jay Z. Steinberg. She loved to visit New York. In 1949 on one of her excursions in the city one of her art professors from Chicago introduced her to ‘The Club.’ Steinberg was immediately drawn to their ideals and the aesthetic behind them and Ms. Newman proceeded to collect their work with great discernment. By 1954 she had amassed a collection of superb paintings by Pollock, de Kooning, Kline, and Rothko.

I was moved by the passionate gestural brash work featured in Franz Klines 1950 Nijinsky. Ms. Kwon explained that Kline projected sketches on an overhead onto a window shade that he would affix to a wooden frame. Kline proceeded to paint abstract forms onto his makeshift canvasses and would use old newspapers to blot out undesired sections of his work. Experiencing this exhibition while learning about the social history of Washington Square Park has inspired my personal interest in painting and design. I look forward to further exploring the material culture that surrounds these revolutionary artists.