New York Figurative Expressionism
New York Figurative Expressionism is a visual arts movement and a branch of American Figurative Expressionism. Though the movement dates to the 1930s, it was not formally classified as "figurative expressionism" until the term arose as a counter-distinction to the New York–based postwar movement known as Abstract Expressionism.
Marsden Hartley's 1941 painting of "Lobster Fishermen" inspired by fishermen from his home state of Maine.
Marsden Hartley's "Adelard the Drowned, Master of the Phantom," 1939.
Max Weber's sculpture "Aurora," 1937.
Edwin Dickinson's "Portrait of Biala," 1924.
American Figurative Expressionism
American Figurative Expressionism is a 20th-century visual art style or movement that first took hold in Boston, and later spread throughout the United States. Critics dating back to the origins of Expressionism have often found it hard to define. One description, however, classifies it as a Humanist philosophy, since it is human-centered and rationalist. Its formal approach to the handling of paint and space is often considered a defining feature, too, as is its radical, rather than reactionary, commitment to the figure.
A detail from Ben Shahn's "The Passion of Sacco and Vanzetti" series, 1931-32.
Edvard Munch, The Scream, oil, tempera and pastel on cardboard, 1893, National Gallery, Oslo
Max Beckmann's Self-Portrait with Horn, oil on canvas, 1938.
Kandinsky's Der Blaue Reiter, painted in a style Kandinsky would reject within the decade, oil on canvas, 1903, Stiftung Sammlung E.G. Bührle, Zurich.