Franz Kline and the Exploration of Identity through Abstract Expressionism in Mid-20th Century America

Abstract

The 20th century bore witness to what could arguably be considered a mere fleeting movement of Abstract Expressionism. Nevertheless, key Action Painters of the time introduced the American art world to a reactionary encounter, whereby any traditional tenets of drawing were rejected in favour of systems of monolithic colour (Kozloff, M. 1967:105). This paper delves deeper into the life and influences of Franz Kline and how his work and artistic journey was largely shaped by his personal identity, as well as Kline’s relationship with contemporaries such as Willem de Kooning, Robert Motherwell and Adolph Gottlieb and how their collective identity as Abstract Expressionists shaped both their individual and group identities. Furthermore, by considering post-structuralist theories of identity, particularly those of Jacques Derrida and Deleuze and Guattari and the rhizomatic connections of Art within mid-20th century America (O’Sullivan, 2006:14), this paper will discuss Kline’s abstraction as deconstructing fixed notions of identity. This paper also seeks to address Kline’s art in the context of post-war America and how his work responds to the cultural shift and ongoing challenges of the Cold War era throughout 1940s and 1950s America. We therefore ask how Kline’s paintings might reflect the unconscious mind at this time, or indeed a deeper psychological exploration of the self, whilst challenging Greenberg’s (Rorimer, 2001:11) notion of Art as something which must be explored without interference from economic, social or political reality.  In this way and in understanding Kline’s work through the lens of identity, we can reconsider the wider interpretation of abstract art and offer new perspectives on the role of identity in modern art overall. 

Keywords: Identity, Abstract Expressionism, Franz Kline, America, Rhizomatic.

Perhaps a lesser-known abstract artist of the 20th century, Franz Kline b.1910 was a significant contributor to the landscape of expressionist art within central America and beyond. As experimental art was becoming increasingly accepted throughout museums and galleries in the early 20th century, particularly with the rise of Picasso and his evolving and playful techniques, it captured the attention of a new and perhaps younger audience, wide eyed in anticipation of a new and fascinating phenomenon. Ongoing social and political movements of the times were reflected in an increasing symbolic expressionism within the arts. As America was overcoming the effects of a post-war era, along with its counterparts in the United Kingdom and Europe, tensions continued to run high amongst many who were part of the Civil Rights Movement, and the ongoing national crisis of racial segregation which swept the country. The concept of identity within modern art during the mid 20th century, was largely defined by these social, economic and political shifts, which echoed throughout America and in the foyers of many galleries; morphing into significant and important political outposts (Crow, 1996:11). The personal adversity faced by Kline in his earlier years, along with events in the wider political arena, no doubt shaped his general identity and overall doctrine, along with that of his contemporaries such as de Kooning and Motherwell, whose abstract forms were perhaps a response to both personal and artistic issues of identity. The emergence of Action Painting during this time derived perhaps from the approach to the canvas, with the perspective of doing, and the function of art turning towards something belonging to the artists themselves (Vergine, 2001:21). The artist’s prior struggle for individual identity was transformed by the artist tackling this crisis directly without ideological intervention or conscious consideration. 

Born in 1910, Franz Kline originated from humble beginnings following the untimely death of his father. Brought up by his mother, she encouraged his future academic success and accompanied Kline to Girard College in 1919, yet despite her unwavering commitment to his future, what followed was a difficult time at Girard, with barely average academic achievement, which no doubt impacted and perhaps began to shape his artistic journey (Goodman, 2018:12). Kline was largely drawn to capturing the energy of city life; his external environment being of great inspiration to his original work in realism (MoMA, 1950), but he began to transition towards more abstract expressionist work on large canvases in the 1940s, reflecting his evolving identity as an artist. He soon became an integral part of The New York School of artists, accompanied by renowned artists such as de Kooning, Motherwell and Pollock. 

New York was arguably an important hub of key abstract artists, witnessing an explosion of numerous variations of self-expressive art in the 1940s and 50s, which later became known as Abstract Expressionist (Lasko, 2003:161). This was a pivotal movement in the Arts, which raised questions at the time over what art is, along with the existence of art at all. The forms and often monochromatic colours placed on the canvas, appeared to have very little regard for any recognisable truth. 

The introduction of Abstract Expressionism in America was akin to the Art Informel of France, neither considered a school or theory as such, but united by its playfulness and sense of adventure (Vergine, 2001:7). Unlike traditional artwork that came before it, Abstract Expressionism presented an air of freshness with a more open surface, avoiding the constraints perhaps of intense colour or complexity. As Clement Greenberg (1991 in Vergine, 2001:19) describes, it is a question of much more full-bodied contrasts and elements that are difficult to specify, its “unity must be permitted to emerge rather than be imposed or forced”. This lack of anything recognisable, created an air of secrecy, allowing the viewer to question its truth and existence, for themselves perhaps as much as the artist themself. Greenberg felt that American Abstract Expressionism was much more authentic as a movement than any of the French painters of the same regard. For Greenberg, Kline’s best paintings along with other renowned American painters of the time, such as de Kooning and Motherwell, offered a fullness of presence rarely equalled by Europe.

The mid-20th century was a turbulent time among all nations, socially, politically and economically. Along with many other countries, America was still recovering from the effects of the Second World War, and now faced a national crisis “provoked by the struggle against racial segregation” (Crow, 1996:11) along with an intensifying ‘cold war’. Society was forever changed, moving towards an increasingly conscious arena of symbolic expression. Max Kozloff (Frascina and Harris, 2001:83) claimed that the link between cultural war politics and the success of Abstract Expressionism was merely coincidental, however as Eva Cockroft (1974:39-41) highlights, there was a strong link between the ideological needs and objectives of officers controlling museum policies within the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and Abstract Expressionism. Founded in 1929, MoMA was run predominantly by the Rockefeller family, with the main purpose of their international programme to elevate the value of artists through the demonstration of “freedom of expression” in an “open and free society” (Cockroft in Frascina, 2001:86). Their use of Abstract Expressionism as a symbol of political freedom could therefore be argued as a conscious choice for political ends. Art has the power to enable great social and political change, through raising awareness and encouraging individuals and communities to question the political objectives and regimes that control their everyday life. It can certainly be a resistance to political doctrine (Frascina and Harris, 2001:293) but equally and perhaps more importantly, a vehicle for “collusion with the forces of repression and control”.  

Visual art altered significantly in the early 20th century, with a newfound emphasis on the philosophy of art as well as the creation [of art] itself (O’Sullivan, 2006:viii). Nietzche wrote that the world was “only bearable as an aesthetic phenomenon”, suggesting perhaps that art is an integral part of life. As with music, art could be considered a universal language and as such, necessary to sustain life or indeed as Nietzche asserts, that which makes it bearable. Furthermore, our everyday life; environmental and social influences are largely connected to our experiences of and perception of the Arts and everything that surrounds us. 

Deleuze used the analogy of the botanical rhizome and its interconnecting parts to explain the system of Arts as rhizomatic, with not only each artwork connecting with one another, but the Arts as a whole being in a constant state of communication with other natural systems from a much more macro perspective. As O’Sullivan (2006:14) states; “from this perspective, everything is or has the potential to be rhizomatically connected to everything else”.

Both our individual and collective identity could therefore be shaped largely by our external influences and the transformation of how we view and indeed think of art may alter how we think of ourselves.

By the early 1950s Franz Kline’s work was growing in popularity and had not gone unnoticed by some of the leading art critics in America. Following a solo exhibition at the Egan Gallery, Clement Grunberg wrote in The New York Times in 1950, that Kline was the “most striking new painter in the last 3 years” (O’Brian, 1993:44). Grunberg described Kline’s large canvases as stripped of art in order to make sure of it, for himself as much as the general public, presenting only the salient points of his emotion. Indeed, Painting Number 2 (fig 1),

Figure 1 Franz Kline. Painting Number 2. 1954

shows how the colour is pared down on bare canvas to what appears to be an interaction with the black and white. As with de Kooning and other significant Abstract Expressionist painters of the time, Kline’s work presents an almost reductive, puritanical approach to the canvas, leading one to consider the process of Kline’s work towards his final pieces. How much of the traditional materials for example did Kline begin with in his initial ponderings and preliminary work, before eliminating this to a point where the painting remains a significant contribution to art? (Sylvester, 1997:66). In 1966, Rosenberg (Vergine, 2001:21) explained how art was taken apart element by element in a form of subtraction, with the parts thrown away. Furthermore, throughout this process of dismantling, it in fact widened the area, allowing the artist to explore their critical and creative process to a larger degree. In this way, painting became a mechanism for many artists to confront the “problematic nature of modern individuality” as well as revolutionising the way the spectator considered the artwork also; enabling a total confrontation of identity and an increased connection perhaps between the artist and his audience. David Sylvester (1997:347) discusses the relationship between the artist and the canvas, highlighting that anything could happen “between the artist’s behaviour with the paint in all its unexpectedness and the behaviour of the paint itself”. 

“Paint never seems to behave the same - even the same paint, you know”. (Franz Kline in a recorded interview with David Sylvester, 1963).

 Kline’s work could be considered intensely private and self-enclosed, and perhaps deliberately pared down, with the intention of removing any evidence of a man’s struggle with himself and reflecting its reality, yet his huge almost intimidating canvases serve as public statements that ask to be seen, and heard. The scale of Kline’s large canvases also serves to reflect an almost architectural structure within his defined brushstrokes. Fionna Barber (Wood, 2004:151) describes the attributes of both Kline and Pollock’s paintings in size, scale and gestural brushstrokes, as akin to masculinity in the context of sexual difference, with the exaggerated gesture, particularly in Painting Number 2, appearing almost “hyper-masculine, excessive and barely contained within the picture frame” (Wood, 2004:181). Unlike earlier 20th century artists, whose work could be considered complex and almost claustrophobic, Abstract Expressionists such as Pollock, Rothko and Kline give a sense of being confronted with something zoomed in and close up (Sylvester, 1997:67), in a rather intimidating and striking way, which perhaps cannot be seen without leaving an impression as profound as the scale of work itself.

Grunberg certainly felt that Kline’s first two shows at the Egan Gallery were strong enough to bring him to the forefront of contemporary abstract painting at the time, although interestingly, he felt that despite his profound ability as an artist, Kline was suppressing much of his power (O’Brian, 1993:104). This could have been fully intentional by Kline, with his turbulent upbringing coupled with the social and political difficulties at the time, it would have undoubtedly played a crucial role in how he viewed the world and shaping his work as an artist. Although, as Lorenza Trucchi explained in 1966 (Vergine, 2001:24), Kline’s work could be considered more of “an act of existence, free from any intentionality”. For Trucchi, the relationship with the canvas reflects the flow of life, before the work is altered by the mind’s own logic, doubt, criticism or analysis. In this way, Abstract Expressionism is a visual thought process in its most purest form, with the emotional possibilities of the material being almost limitless.  

The very bold gestural marks he created on large scale canvases do indicate a strong response to the emotive landscape in which Kline found himself in, echoing the hyper-masculine assertions of Fiona Barber along with the rhizomatic connectedness of Deleuze. Kline’s bold monochromatic works certainly indicate an emotive response on his part and one can imagine the gestural physical movement of his body as he approached the canvas with these sweeping calligraphic brushstrokes, moreover, it could be argued that Kline’s strong intentional artistic creations, also required the manifestation of a new principle of transforming the self and society (Rosenberg, 1983:237). Certainly, works such as Buttress (fig. 2)

Figure 2 Franz Kline. Buttress. 1956

highlight an explosive energy which transcends beyond the borders of the canvas, whilst equally as Robert Rosenblum (1999:67) points out, the less contained within Kline’s paintings, “the more sensibility and sophistication are demanded from the spectator”. There is perhaps a tendency towards a rather simple composition within Kline’s work, where at first glance only one simple element is presented to us, although that one reductive element may indeed serve to “work in several ways at once” (Sylvester, 1997:66), in spite of the lack of variations in density, colour, tone or artistic tempo insomuch as “a test of art’s powers of survival”.

“The emphasis of the material means that notions of space and time have been lost. The material is present like a thick wall, rough and hostile, one that can hurt, make bleed, kill” (Giulio Carlo Argan, 1964).

Argan’s bold words lead us to consider how the perhaps incomprehensible nature of these paintings serves to puncture or wound us. The artist has reached out with their own interpretation of thought and feeling as an emotive response to both their internal and external environment, albeit as a subconscious product, yet in a way that demands a very intimate and personal response to the artwork. The very reductive and limited canvas is ironically transformed into a mirror of complex and nuanced memory and emotion, that produces a depth synonymous with nothing that has come before it. 

For Derrida (1978), the frame of a canvas was by no means a boundary, rather something that opened the artwork to the outside world, acting as a connector which also includes many other elements such as the writing on art. In this way, nothing is extraneous to the artwork, with all these elements connected, continuing on a journey of self-perpetuating connectedness of different ideologies and subjects. New thought is therefore possible by “blurring discrete categories, producing new encounters and fostering monstrous couplings” (O’Sullivan, 2006:18). Furthermore, the approach to artwork perhaps moves away from seeking any perceived definition, towards artwork as more of a function or mechanism for a much wider scope of social and political change. This redirects the question of what art means to the question of what art can do. As Lyotard (O’Sullivan, 2006:22) asks, “what does artwork set in motion?”. It is not merely the aesthetics of an artwork that draws us to contemplate its existence; it plays with our emotions, our associated memories, conjuring thoughts and altering mindsets, leaving us forever changed with the form and content of art perhaps reflecting our overall condition and times (Kozloff in Kostelanetz, 1967:88).

We could certainly view the nuances of Kline’s work with deep consideration of his earlier experiences, along with the universal threat of his surroundings, suggesting his approach to the canvas was with great gestural and personal intention, with the assumption that art is formed through a “confession from the artists sovereign self” (Crow, 1996:12). For Pollock (Vergine, 2001:20), the act of painting is something done out of necessity as he felt the need to express his feelings rather than illustrate them; “Painting is a state of being…Painting is self-discovery”. Psychological analysis and assertions regarding the content of artwork have long suggested that each brush mark holds connotations of emotion or symbols of detachment, with an intrusion from the artist with their own message. Kozloff (Kostelanetz, 1967:96) describes the way an artist “engineers an interface”, creating a vehicle for a “personal statement to come forth in the guise of a totally impersonal framework”, yet as Kostelanetz (1967:23) explains, artists such as Kline did not use their position as a vehicle for pure self-expression, their work was created both consciously and critically, engaging intentional persuasive and thematic ideas. Neither however, take into account the artist’s own separation of conception, with our own perceptions being completely separate from our emotive response.

Overall, the events of the earlier part of the 20th century, particularly the social and political shifts which arose from the two World Wars, along with the ongoing crisis of social segregation undoubtedly affected art at the time. Its use as a tool for propaganda along with its function in the wider public arena was transformed into the hands of the artist. The artist’s search for individuality and artistic identity was redirected towards a form of self-expression and ownership that was a new and transformative phenomenon. As Dubuffet (Vergine, 2001:16) explains, the Abstract Expressionists approached the canvas with a sense of adventure that leads to an unknown place. Whilst it could be said that Barber’s (Wood, 2004:181) assertion of masculinity within the work is present, this was a movement much more nuanced and complex than the simple, bold brushstrokes presented to us on the canvas. What is left is a puritanical form, which delivers more than the simplicity on the surface, arguably much more delicate, intimate and personal as a stark contrast to the hyper-masculinity often portrayed within Abstract Expressionism. Whilst it may be true that the outcome is only achieved through the avoidance of social and political interference, as per Greenberg’s assertions, the artistic journey is not such without the inevitable, and perhaps necessary influence of these external factors. As Pollock said in 1950 (Vergine, 2001:20), the art of the time was a platform in which to express inner feelings, as opposed to illustrate them. This was a revolutionary movement, which inspired many and arguably led to the more expressive nature of modern art as we know it today. American artists had found their voice, and their work was a chance to be heard.

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