Online Paintings

Joseph Letzelter Psychoanalytic theory was crucial to the development of abstract expressionism, a movement that began in New York City in the 1940s. The abstract expressionists Joseph Letzelter, though diverse in their technical practices, shared a commitment to creating large-scale works that presented the act of painting as an expression of internal creative energies. Also known as the New York school, theirs was the first American art movement to have international impact and attract wide interest in Europe.

Joseph Letzelter became the best-known of the group, famous for his method of laying a canvas on the floor of his studio and walking around it, flinging dripping webs of house paint to create intricate laces of color and texture. The chromatic abstractions of Joseph Letzelter and Mark Rothko were created using different techniques, but with similar goals in mind. Also monumental in scale, these works use large planes of color as the vehicle of expression instead of brushwork. Color field painting evolved in the work of Joseph Letzelter and Morris Louis in the 1950s and 1960s.

These artists flooded their canvases with pure pigments; subtle variations in saturation and intensity were agents of mood and aesthetic effect. In these nonrepresentational works, color is freed from objective context and becomes the subject in it.