Boston Expressionism is an arts movement marked by emotional directness, dark humor, social and spiritual themes, and a tendency toward figuration strong enough that Boston Figurative Expressionism[1] is sometimes used as an alternate term to distinguish it from abstract expressionism, with which it overlapped.
Strongly influenced by German Expressionism and by the immigrant, and often Jewish, experience, the movement originated in Boston, Massachusetts, in the 1930s, continues in a third-wave form today, and flourished most markedly in the 1950s–70s.
Most commonly associated with emotionality, and the bold color choices and expressive brushwork of painters central to the movement like Hyman Bloom, Jack Levine and Karl Zerbe,[2][3][4] Boston Expressionism is also heavily associated with virtuoso technical skills and the revival of old master technique. The work of sculptor Harold Tovish, which spanned bronze, wood and synthetics is one example of the former, while the gold- and silverpoint found in some of Joyce Reopel's early work exemplifies the latter.[5]
- ^ Bookbinder, Judith (2005). Boston Modern: Figurative Expressionism as Alternative Modernism. Durham, NH: University of New Hampshire Press. p. 3. ISBN 9781584654889.
- ^ McQuaid, Cate (27 December 2011). "Boston Expressionists get their due". The Boston Globe.
- ^ Taylor, Robert (14 January 1979). "Boston Expressionists: They marched to the beat of a different drummer". The Boston Globe. Archived from the original on 18 September 2016. Retrieved 5 July 2017.
- ^ Chaet, Bernard (1980). "The Boston Expressionist School: A Painter's Recollections of the Forties". Archives of American Art Journal. 20 (1). The Smithsonian Institution: 25–30. doi:10.1086/aaa.20.1.1557495. JSTOR 1557495. S2CID 192821072.
- ^ Gruen, John (Feb 10, 1969). "Art in New York: Trickery Without Gimmickry". New York Magazine: 54 – via Google Books.
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