They experimented, they felt the need to invent, to innovate, to improvise and to foster new ways of expressions, new means, in order for them to go forward and to have something new and significant to say in art. They had to break with the conventions of the traditional art in order to do that.
By the mid twentieth century, New York became the center of the art world, as it managed to gather some of the most significant names in modern art at the time. The 9th Street Show from 1952 in New York, simply put New York on the map by gathering numerous names of the contemporary artists on both sides of the Atlantic, with a special accent on abstract expressionism. Thus, the paintings of artists like Clyfford Still, Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko and Robert Motherwell, started to speak to the rest of the world at a scale comparable...
They certainly made an impact, although most of the world did not know what to make out of them at first.
Another major name in the abstract expressionist movement is that of Arschile Gorky. His biography, like that of the rest of the American abstract expressionists at the middle of the twentieth century, became intrinsically related to his body of work. First, he experimented with mastering the more conventional art movement styles, such as expressionism and cubism, then he went on to a style that became entirely of his own.
Although the paintings of the abstract expressionists are unique as their individualities and life experiences were unique, they share one feature they break with conventions, adopting completely new ways of expression while admitting the
