Boston Expressionism

Boston Expressionism was a school of painting that originated in Boston, Massachusetts, in the 1930s and flourished through the 1950s. Strongly influenced by German Expressionism and by the Jewish immigrant experience, it is marked by emotional directness, dark humor, social and spiritual themes, and a tendency toward figuration. The painters' technique was distinctive, employing bold color and expressive brushwork, and they often experimented with unusual media such as encaustic.

Boston Expressionism is sometimes referred to as "Boston figurative expressionism", although the degree of abstraction varies and the movement overlapped with Abstract Expressionism. Key figures in the early days of Boston Expressionism were Hyman Bloom, Jack Levine, and Karl Zerbe. Their influence can still be seen in the work of some contemporary Boston-area artists.

The original Boston Expressionists were Hyman Bloom and Jack Levine. Both painters grew up in immigrant communities: Bloom in the slums of Boston's West End and Levine in the South End. In the 1930s, having attended settlement house art classes as children, both won fine arts scholarships and trained at the Fogg Museum with Denman Ross. Both painters drew on their Eastern European Jewish heritage, and were strongly influenced by the "starkness and angst" of German Expressionism and by modern Jewish painters such as Chagall and Soutine. Bloom tended to explore spiritual themes, while Levine was more inclined toward social commentary and dark humor. Both came to prominence in 1942 when they were included in Americans 1942: 18 Artists from 9 States, a Museum of Modern Art exhibition curated by Dorothy Miller. Soon afterwards, Time magazine called Bloom "one of the most striking of U.S. Colorists", and Levine won a prize at an exhibit in the Metropolitan Museum in New York. They were nicknamed "the bad boys of Boston."

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