Splatters, Drips, Tracings, and Horsehair

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

It was this summer’s Richard Pousette-Dart show at the Guggenheim Museum that started me thinking about abstract painting and how insistently it’s continued. Pousette-Dart (1916–1992) was a core member of the well-known New York Abstract Expressionist scene, but he is one of the least remembered now. In fact, his painting followed a peculiar arc, concluding with a long period of rather trippy pointillism. In my opinion, his work was probably at its strongest during its Surrealist-tinged semi-abstract “pictographic” phase during the early 1940s. Richard Pousette-Dart, "Abstract Eye" (1941–43)

© 2007 Estate of Richard Pousette-Dart/Artists Rights Society (ARS). Courtesy Estate of Richard Pousette-Dart and American Contemporary Art Gallery