At a time when the world was processing the anxieties of the Second World War and navigating a backdrop of deeply conflicted political climates, artists began to express their concerns in a new form of art that embraced personal and political freedom. Ironically, the reach of this 'freedom' has been limited to the white, male, and Western perspective. The overlooked narrative of gestural abstraction is kaleidoscopic, broad in its geographical breadth, in its definition and, crucially, it is female.
The book features over eighty artists including American artists Lee Krasner (1908-1984) and Helen Frankenthaler (1928-2011), alongside lesser-known figures such as Mozambican-Italian artist Bertina Lopes (1924-2012) and South Korean artist Wook-kyung Choi (1940-1985).
Essay contributors include Griselda Pollock, Elizabeth A. T. Smith and Iwona Blazwick.
Clothbound and screen-printed hardback, 272 pages, 305 x 215 mm
Colour illustrations throughout
First published 2023 by Whitechapel Gallery, London