The pioneering women of abstract expressionism and their legacy

Based on the assumption that any contemporary artist while elaborating on her art should perceive the historical dimension, this research endeavors to acknowledge the women in art with the pioneers of Abstract Expressionism being at its core. Focusing on two related topics, the research first examines the legacy of Abstract Expressionism and its women. It notes the American avant-garde's conclusion -accompanying the traumas and contradictions surrounding the World War II- that "abstract art is the language of freedom". Thus, the research attempts to figure out the validity of Abstract Expressionism's aesthetic values in our time and region. Secondly, the research discusses the dialectic of 'gender of art'. It links the art's goal of reaching the universal with the understanding that an individual experience is acquired mainly through a social process. The fact that gender issues have a role in the power struggle within the art world is one of the main pillars of the study. The study includes condemnation of the subordination of the women within Abstract Expressionism despite evidence of an intellectual landscape that includes various ethnicities and sexual identities. This discrimination is indeed a contradiction to the claim that American modernism tends to integrate and synthesize. The push of the Women's Liberation Movement in the 1970s initiated the study of radical art history and criticism with a pluralistic view. Nevertheless, the necessity of an inclusive mindset continues as of this day. As this research progresses, it evolves to defend the right of any one artist to be different from any other. Keywords: Abstract Expressionism, Women Artists, Feminism, American Modernism, Abstract Art, Expression, Autonomy, Freedom, Individuality