Since the early 20th century, Western abstract art has fascinated, outraged and mystified the public. Its acceptance into the mainstream art scene was slow. Anna Moszynska traces the origins and evolution of abstract art, placing it in a broad cultural context.

She examines the pioneering work of Kandinsky, Malevich and Mondrian, along with the Russian Constructivists, the De Stijl group and the Bauhaus artists, contrasting the European geometric abstraction of the 1930s and 1940s with the emphasis on personal expression after the Second World War.

Optical, kinetic and minimalist art of the post-war period is analysed and illustrated in detail, and new chapters update the narrative, exploring the crisis of abstraction in the 1980s and its resurgence - in painting, canvas, sculpture and installation - in recent decades. The first edition of this book, published in 1990, was critically acclaimed; now in full colour and thoroughly revised, it will serve as the best introduction to abstract art for a new generation.

• Pages: 272
• Language: English
• Author: Anna Moszynska
• Year: 2020
• MODEL: 9780500204450

Publisher: Thames and hudson