Pollock and the irascible of the New York school on display at the Vittoriano

After the visionary recklessness of Warhol, the "Irascibili" arrive in Rome of Scu di New Y, that group of artists of the Action Painter  who in 1950 revolutionized the world of American art by bursting onto the cultural scene with their disruptive and irreverent charge of nonconformity. A real revolt  which divided the American art world to the point that the Metropolitan Museum di New Y, with little foresight about the future of art, came to exclude them from an important exhibition of contemporary art arousing largeand stir in American artistic circles

So here they are on display up to 24 February altheWing Brazilians of the Victorian, with Jackson Pollock in the lead, the founder of Action Painting, superstar of American painting of those years to whom the magazine "Life", already in 1949, had dedicated a long post-sales service  in the central pages wondering if he was the most important living American artist. And with Pollock of which the famous Number is exhibited for the first time 27, the large canvas over 3 meters long  extraordinary synthesis of abstract expressionism  among the brushstrokes of black elfusion dlight colors, which alone justifies a visit to the Mostra del Vittoriano,  appear in exposure 50 masterpieces of mark rothko, Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, William Baziotes, David Smith,  Lenore Krasner, Pollock's muse and companion forced to change the first name to  Lee (looks amazing in the 50s but that's how it is) to remedy the gender discrimination rooted in the art system and appearing as a male painter, and others, which offer an overall look at the climate of those years in which the New York School imposed on the world abstract expressionism like indelible sign of modern pop culture, a combination of expressiveness of form and stylistic abstraction, which significantly influenced all the 50s.
action painting it is therefore innovation, transformation, breaking from the mold and from the past. The exhibition which aims to make the public discover not only the charm of this movement through art but above all di far reliving the emotions and feelings of those artists who made an era of art history unique is based on one of the cores more import anti from the collection of Whitney Museum in New York. A museum that has played a defining role in the history of modern American art. He founded it in 1931, therefore immediately after the great depression of '29, Gertrude Vanderblit Whitney (1875-1942), patron of the arts, wealthy heiress and collector,  with the purpose of supporting living American artists not yet consecrated by critics and the market. Fundamental institution for the emergence of a new contemporary sensibility, different from the model of the MoMA, still Eurocentric and attracted by the masters ofthe historical avant-gardes. Andto 1955 the Whitney  Museum strengthened even more  the procurement policy,  its to respond to the failed merger with the Metropolitan, of which a wing should have been dedicated to new American art.

The critics defined it  an “empty container”,  but actually the New York School found you  a moment of cohesion in which the artists argued,  

parlavano, writeEveno Yes  they gathered  e they went togetherand when there'era  need to fight some battle.  It was not an easy life for the group. In April of 1950 several of them – Robert Motherwell, De Kooning, Gottlieb, Newman, Hans Hofmann, William Baziotes –  they had soulto  the round table at Studio 35 to launch the publication of “Possibilities I. Modern Artists in America” registerdo  remarkable  difficult to be taken into considerationtion from the public and from institutions, not yet ready to grasp "the real essence of the artistic work".  Even among them there is no lack of divergence, nthey do not agree  neither on the name to be given. Officially, it is Motherwell who introduces the name New York School on the occasion of the collective exhibition  Seventeen Modern American Paintersat the  

Frank Pearls Gallery in Beverly Hills in Los Angeles, to underline the catalytic force of Manhattan in the early XNUMXs.  

The most significant episode that produced that image that has become a true symbol of American art is the photograph of Nina Leen which appeared in January 1951 in "Life" and exhibited on a large panel at the Vittoriano: fifteen artists, Hedda Sterne is the only woman, “dressed as bankers”, posed to show their strength and their cohesion against the Metropolitan Museum which did not include the Abstract Expressionists  of  exhibition of contemporary American art. A somewhat singular way of contesting the decision, anticipated by the letter published in the "New York Times" in May 1950 which collects  

eighteen signatures. The shot therefore identifies the  Short-tempered, despite the so civil form underlined by formal clothes, where the protagonists (Pollock in the center, Newman, Rothko, Motherwell, De Kooning) are together with the supporting actors. The appearance is good-natured yet they are technically angry about this isolated condition, which nevertheless puts them in a rather typical situation in the times of the avant-garde: to make a common front, to work together, to share successes and difficulties in a compact way. From Greenwich Village, the neighborhood where they gather, a loud voice is raised on the difficult relationship between artists and institutions, even if we are in America, the country of the new. A country where change, not to mention the generational split, is underway and will never stop for a long time, starting right from 1950, the year of the Irascibles, in fact. Andin Pittsburgh,  Andy  

Warhol moved permanently under the Empire State Building, works as an illustrator and window dresser waiting to develop the strategy that will lead him to become the most important artist of the  following decade.