Abstract Expressionism is largely remembered as a movement defined by the paint-slinging, hard-drinking machismo of its poster boys Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning. But the women who helped develop and push the style forward have largely fallen out of the art-historical spotlight, marginalized during their careers (and now in history books) as students, disciples, or wives of the their more-famous male counterparts rather than pioneers in their own right. (An exception is Helen Frankenthaler, whose transcendent oeuvre is often the only female practice referred to in scholarship and exhibitions around action painting.)
Even when these artists were invited into the members- and male-only Eighth Street Club to discuss abstraction and its ability to channel emotional states—as was the case with Perle Fine, Joan Mitchell, and Mary Abbott—their work rarely sold as well or was written about as widely or favorably. And these women received far fewer solo exhibitions than their male contemporaries. Some even changed their names, like Michael West, in an effort to combat the era’s sexism, or incorporated into their work tacit challenges to the status quo, as Elaine de Kooning did in her “Faceless Men” series.
Now in a long-overdue exhibition at the Denver Art Museum, a sizable, boundary-pushing group of female Abstract Expressionists are finally getting their due. Below, we spotlight some of the most innovative practitioners (admittedly, there are many more than 11).
Judith Godwin
B. 1930, SUFFOLK, VA
In 1950, Godwin, who was studying art in Virginia, met and befriended dancer and choreographer Martha Graham. The fateful run-in inspired Godwin to relocate to New York, where she began painting in abstract and with a dynamism influenced by Graham. In some paintings, you can almost feel the arc of her arm as it swooped across the canvas. “I can see her gestures in everything I do,” she once said of Graham.
Godwin fused this theatrical sense of movement with Hofmann’s color theories to produce rich tonal combinations. A long-term dialogue with Japanese painter Kenzo Okada also guided her practice and bolstered her interest in Zen Buddhism, as well as her intuitive approach to abstract painting. “When I recognize an emerging form, I respond intuitively by evolving complimentary sub-forms in colors and applications which feel supportive and foster development,” she said. “In studying color and its behavior, I have learned to trust my intuition.”
