Color Field painting is a style of abstract painting that emerged in New York City during the 1950s and 1960s. Inspired by European modernism and closely related to Abstract Expressionism, many of its notable early proponents were among the pioneering Abstract Expressionists. Color Field is characterized primarily by its use of large fields of flat, solid color spread across or stained into the canvas creating areas of unbroken surface and a flat picture plane. The movement places less emphasis on gesture, brushstrokes and action than Abstract Expressionism, favouring instead an overall consistency of form and process, with color itself becoming the subject matter.
Encompassing several decades from the mid-20th century through the early 21st century, the history of Color Field painting can be separated into three separate but related generations of painters, commonly grouped into abstract expressionism, post-painterly abstraction, and lyrical abstraction. Some of the artists made works in all three eras that relate to all of the three styles.
The focus of attention in the contemporary art world began to shift from Paris to New York after World War II and the development of American Abstract Expressionism. During the late 1940s and early 1950s, Clement Greenberg was the first art critic to suggest and identify a dichotomy between differing tendencies within the Abstract Expressionist canon—especially between Action Painting and what Greenberg termed "Post-Painterly Abstraction" (today known as Color Field). By the late 1950s and early 1960s, young artists began to break away stylistically from Abstract Expressionism, experimenting with new ways of handling paint and color. Moving away from the gesture and angst of Action painting towards flat, clear picture planes and a seemingly calmer language, Color Field artists used formats of stripes, targets and simple geometric patterns to concentrate on color as the dominant theme their paintings.
Color Field painting initially referred to a particular type of abstract expressionism, exemplified especially in the work of Mark Rothko, Clyfford Still, Barnett Newman, Robert Motherwell, Adolph Gottlieb and several series of paintings by Joan Miró. Color Field painting sought to rid art of superfluous rhetoric and gesture. Artists like Morris Louis, Jules Olitski, Kenneth Noland, Friedel Dzubas, Frank Stella often used greatly reduced formats, simplified or regulated systems, basic references to nature to draw the focus of the painting to color, and the interactions of color, as the most important element.
Frank Stella, Harran II, 1967
During the late 1950s and early 1960s, Frank Stella was a significant figure in the emergence of Minimalism, Post-Painterly Abstraction, and Color Field painting. His shaped canvases of the 1960s revolutionized abstract painting.
'Beginning', magna on canvas painting by Kenneth Noland, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, 1958
Color Field painting is characterized by simple geometric forms and repetitive, regulated systems.
Who's Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue?, 1966, by Barnett Newman
The flat, solid picture plane typical of Color Field paintings is evident in this piece by Barnet Newman, where the color red takes centre stage.
An important distinction between Color Field painting and abstract expressionism is the paint handling. The most basic defining technique of painting is application of paint, and the Color Field painters revolutionized the way paint could be effectively applied. Water-soluble, artist-quality acrylic paints first became commercially available in the early 1960s, coinciding with the Color Field movement. The most common applications were stain painting (where artists would mix and dilute their paint in buckets or coffee cans, making a fluid liquid, then pour it onto raw unprimed canvas, drawing shapes and areas as they stained); spray painting (a technique using a spray gun to create large expanses and fields of color sprayed across the canvas); and the use of stripes. Color Field painting initially appeared to be cool and austere due to these methods of handling paint that tended to eschew the individual mark of the artist. However, Color Field painting has proven to be both sensual and deeply expressive, albeit in a different way from gestural abstract expressionism.
Jack Bush, Big A, 1968
Jack Bush was a Color Field painter who made used geometric, simple forms to highlight the pure interaction of color in his work.