New York Figurative Expressionism

New York Figurative Expressionism of the 1950s represented a trend where "diverse New York artists countered the prevailing abstract mode to work with the figure." It was part of the evolving American Figurative Expressionism movement begun in the 1930s in the U.S.

Willem de Kooning, (1904–1997); Jackson Pollock, (1912–1956); Conrad Marca-Relli, (1913–2000)

Larry Rivers, (1923–2002); Grace Hartigan (1922 – )

Elaine de Kooning, (1918–1989); Balcomb Greene, (1904–1990); Robert De Niro, Sr., (1920–1993); Fairfield Porter, (1907–1975); Gregorio Prestopino, (1907–1984); Lester Johnson, (1919–2010); George McNeil, (1909–1995); Robert Goodnough, (1917 – ); Irving Kriesberg, (1919–2009); and Earle M. Pilgrim, (1923-1976)

Jan Müller, (1922–1958); Robert Beauchamp, (1923–1995); Nicholas Marsicano, (1914–1991) and Bob Thompson, (1937–1966)

According to Klaus Kertess, during the 1950s the figure in its role as harbinger of conservatism became an obvious target for abstractionist defensiveness—a defensiveness prone to blur the vast distinctions between figurative painters and to exaggerate the difference between the figurative and the nonfigurative. It was not until the late sixties and early seventies that the figure was permitted to return from exile and even to make claims to centrality.

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