Abstract expressionism

Abstract expressionism is a school of painting that emerged in the United States in the decades following World War II. Its roots may be traced back to New York City in the 1940s. It was the first movement that was particularly American to attain international prominence, and it established New York City as the hub of the Western art world, a position that had previously been held by Paris.

Although the word "abstract expressionism" was not used to American art for the first time until 1946 by the art critic Robert Coates, the phrase was first used in reference to German expressionism in 1919 in the German journal Der Sturm. In 1929, Alfred Barr made history by becoming the first person in the United States to use this phrase in reference to paintings produced by Wassily Kandinsky.