Abstraction #301

Myron Kozman

An exemplary image of Abstract Expressionism’s roots, this multi screen serigraph exhibits the energy of America’s turn toward experimental abandon. In 1940, artists the world over were addressing the chaos of the Depression and a second World War with a new means of communication: non-representational visual communication expressed through the lens of emotion. Dance, music, the written word, and art were the saving graces of a dark era, and Myron Kozman’s “Abstraction # 301” encapsulates this, presenting itself like a illuminated stained glass window onto a dark stretch of history.

America had not yet entered the war when Kozman created this work, but the rumblings of impending bedlam were gaining traction. He chose bright, celebratory colors and dynamic shapes with which to plot out this composition on the sheet, and it reads like a two dimensional manifestation of bebop - the aural twin of AbEx whose star rose in tandem with the visual genre. Kozman has achieved effects within the screens that echo woodblock and lithographic textures, layered in a studied chaos that wraps itself into balance.