Women Artists and Global Abstraction, 1940-1970 - Section 5

Action, Gesture and Paint: Women Artists and Global Abstraction, 1940-70 at the Whitechapel Gallery.

An exhibition celebrating the women artists of mid-20th century gestural abstraction, showing how they shaped modern painting. The story of abstract art took a radical turn in the 1940s. Fusing bodily, gestural and emotive expression with colour, mark-making and the materiality of paint, this new movement was termed (in the USA) as Abstract Expressionism. It is often thought to have been centred in New York, where it was defined mainly by the work of white male artists. However, this new style of painting was a global phenomenon, shaped as much by local cultural and political context as by inernational exchange and dialogue.

The contributions of women have long been marginalised in modern art. The paintings presented here demonstrate how women across the world were fundamental in evolving the story of abstraction, incorporating experiences of turbulent social change into their work and promoting freedom of expression. Their art was made in a period of great historical shifts: the aftermath of WWII, global industrialisation, the rise of civil rights and post-colonial movements and a 'cold war' - marked by the threat of nuclear extinction - between capitalist democracies and communist states. Against this backdrop, the USA promoted abstract art as a form of western propaganda, to counter the influence of communism.

The exhibiton explores how artists made the canvas an arena for experimentation and personal expression through form and colour. It focuses on five themes: paint as material and process; symbolic languages drawn from myth and ritual; abstraction as an expression of the self; painting as movement and dance; and the canvas as environment.

This is the last section of the exhibition.

Section 5: Environment, Nature, Perception.

Lived experiences of the environment are expressed here through canvases that emphasise space, texture, light and atmosphere. These artists distill a momentary impression, observed or remembered, using a palette drawn from their surroundings - rural and urban. Like poets wirting at this time, they developed an aesthetic language that communicates the instantaneous experience of a time and a place, immersing us in the sensations of a landscape or interior. The epic scale of some of these canvases also presents the painting itself as an environment.

Janice Biala, Poland/France, Yellow Still Life, 1955, (oil on canvas)

Biala was one of the few women associated with the New York School of Abstract Expressionism and her work fused gestural lyricism with the aesthetics of the School of Paris.

Maria Helena Vieira da Silva, Untitled, 1955, (oil on canvas)

Maria Raymond, France, Montagne, 1961, (oil on canvas)

Anna-Eva Bergman, Sweden/France, Finnmark, 1966, (oil and silver on particle board)

A Norwegian artist who became one of the most famous post-war Scandinavian painters. Her early works were expressive depictions of landscapes, before she turned to Abstract Expressionism.

Joan Mirchell, USA, Painting, 1958, (oil on canvas)

One of the leading American abastract painters, Mitchell arrived in New York in 1949 and joined what became known as the second generation of Abstract Expressionist artists, including Helen Frankenthaler and Grace Hartigan. She painted in a fluid Abstract Expressionist style throughout her long career, exploring 'remembered feelings of nature' and experimenting with printmaking and drawing.

Ida Barbarigo, Italy, Promenade, 1963, (oil on canvas)

Barbarigo abandoned landscapes and portraits after moving to Paris in 1952 and became associated with the abstract painting movement of the New School of Paris. Painting in ochre tones, rhythmical white brushstrokes, and using sinuous forms orchestrated against light, airy backgrounds, Barbarigo frequently incorporated personal references in her work, in an attempt to 'unlearn how to paint', as she described it, and be closer to her senses.

Joan Mitchell, Untitled, 1957, (oil on canvas)