An excerpt from MoMA’s One on One series offers a close look at a painting that bridges the abstract and the figurative.

Exhibition. Dec 23, 2012–Apr 15, 2013. In 1912, in several European cities, a handful of artists—Vasily Kandinsky, Frantisek Kupka, Francis Picabia, and Robert Delaunay—presented the first abstract pictures to the public.

Take an in-depth, hands-on look at materials, techniques, and approaches to making abstract art.

Oct 3, 2010 · Drawn entirely from the Museum’s vast holdings, Abstract Expressionist New York underscores the achievements of a generation that catapulted New York City to the center of the international art world during the 1950s, and left as its legacy some of the twentieth century’s greatest masterpieces.

Nov 21, 2021 · Prior to its MoMA presentation, the exhibition was shown at the Kunstmuseum Basel (March 19–June 20, 2021) and at Tate Modern in London (July 13–October 17, 2021).

Exhibition. Mar 2–Apr 19, 1936. This groundbreaking exhibition was key to establishing the pedigree for modern art proposed by Museum of Modern Art Founding Director Alfred H. Barr, Jr.—a narrative that continues to shape the Museum’s presentation of modernism to this day.

Explore the art of our time through four of MoMA’s most popular courses: Modern Art and Ideas, Seeing Through Photographs, What Is Contemporary Art?, and Fashion as Design.

An abstract painter considered influential in the development of Minimalism. Though a contemporary of the Abstract Expressionists, he rejected biomorphism and developed paintings based on geometry, specifically grids, often using a single color in gradations.

The dominant artistic movement in the 1940s and 1950s, Abstract Expressionism was the first to place New York City at the forefront of international modern art. The associated artists developed greatly varying stylistic approaches, but shared a commitment to an abstract art that powerfully expresses personal convictions and profound human values.

“His colored rectangles seemed to dematerialize into pure light….” wrote MoMA’s former chief curator of painting and sculpture William S. Rubin. Rothko spent the rest of his career exploring the limitless possibilities of layering variously sized and colored rectangles onto fields of color.