GENERAL DESCRIPTION
American abstract expressionist painter Franz Kline was born in Wilkes-Barre, PA in 1910. From 1931 to 1935, he studied painting at Boston University, and 1935 he traveled to London where he studied at Heatherley's School. In 1938 he settled permanently in New York, where he worked briefly with a scenic designer in 1940. Originally a figurative painter, Franz Kline turned to abstraction in 1949. Using a Bell-Opticon projector, he experimented with enlarging his small black and white drawings into enormous abstract forms that evoke structures as varied as the coal mines of his native Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, or the bridges and cranes of New York City.
Although Kline's gestural work recalls the label of 'action painter" in reference to Jackson Pollock's ritual of dripping paint, his process was actually methodical rather than intuitive. To create his lunging marks, Kline worked the canvas slowly, adjusting the white areas, which he considered to be just as important as the black, with great care and fashioning the black structures precisely. His process involved making a mark, looking at that mark, and then, reacting with another mark. This way of working established for Kline a dialogue with the canvas.
Kline's first one-man show was at the Egan Gallery in 1950. In 1952, Kline taught painting at the Black Mountain College in North Carolina, the same year he was included in the Whitney Museum's Annual Exhibit. By 1953 he was teaching at various universities and had exhibited in major museums around the country. In 1962, he died of a chronic heart problem.
Adapted from
DMA unpublished material, 1986-87.
NOTES
DMA unpublished material = Gail Davitt, biographical essays, education files, 1986-1987.
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AUDIO ASSETS
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WEB RESOURCES
- Khan Academy~Watch a short video about the painting techniques of Franz Kline.
ARCHIVAL RESOURCES (digitized/non-digitized)
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set operator as OR
apply to objects where constituent_id equals 253
apply to constituents where id equals 253
Category
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OR
General Description
American abstract expressionist painter Franz Kline was born in Wilkes-Barre, PA in 1910. From 1931 to 1935, he studied painting at Boston University, and 1935 he traveled to London where he studied at Heatherley's School. In 1938 he settled permanently in New York, where he worked briefly with a scenic designer in 1940. Originally a figurative painter, Franz Kline turned to abstraction in 1949. Using a Bell-Opticon projector, he experimented with enlarging his small black and white drawings into enormous abstract forms that evoke structures as varied as the coal mines of his native Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, or the bridges and cranes of New York City.
Although Kline's gestural work recalls the label of 'action painter" in reference to Jackson Pollock's ritual of dripping paint, his process was actually methodical rather than intuitive. To create his lunging marks, Kline worked the canvas slowly, adjusting the white areas, which he considered to be just as important as the black, with great care and fashioning the black structures precisely. His process involved making a mark, looking at that mark, and then, reacting with another mark. This way of working established for Kline a dialogue with the canvas.
Kline's first one-man show was at the Egan Gallery in 1950. In 1952, Kline taught painting at the Black Mountain College in North Carolina, the same year he was included in the Whitney Museum's Annual Exhibit. By 1953 he was teaching at various universities and had exhibited in major museums around the country. In 1962, he died of a chronic heart problem.
Adapted from
DMA unpublished material, 1986-87.
Fun Facts
Archival Resources
(digitized/non-digitized)
Web Resources
Notes
DMA unpublished material = Gail Davitt, biographical essays, education files, 1986-1987.
rules
Apply To
Constituents
id
Equals
253
source file
artists_and_designers-0193.xml.nores