MoMA Museum Of Modern Art, New York Review
It was great to visit the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York in March 2023, and see some of the best and most famous paintings ever produced. This was also my first art museum visit in about four years (I’m pretty sure the last was to the National Gallery in Singapore in 2019 when I was living there) – and also the first since being part of the art world myself as an artist.
MoMA houses one of the best collections of paintings in the world, with a mixture of permanent and seasonal exhibitions. There was also a really nice atmosphere there on the day, with a very diverse crowd and none of the stuffiness you can find and certain art galleries and museums. It was a buzz to see a couple of Jackson Pollocks in real life for the first time since painting in my Pollock-inspired action painting style now that they mean something to me.
Jackson Pollock’s One: Number 31, 1950 and Number 1A, 1948 are on permanent display there. These are the giant and the medium-sized paintings pictured, respectively. (You can read my interesting blog post on the different sizes of canvas that Pollock painted on here.)
Other MoMA highlights from my visit included:
• Yves Klein’s Blue Monochrome, painted 1961
• Campbell’s Soup Cans by Andy Warhol, created 1962
• Van Gogh’s The Starry Night, painted 1889
• Lee Krasner’s Gaea. Krasner was Jackson Pollock’s wife who is attributed as the stabilising force in his life and career, and a key part of the New York abstract expressionist movement herself in the 1940s and 50s and beyond. It is also acknowledged that Krasner put her own painting career on hold to support Pollock in his own painting endeavours – both providing emotional support to Pollock as well as helping promote his work. There was an early, Pollock-era Krasner painting which was relatively plain and small, which contrasted with the large and expressive pink and black Gaea that was painted in 1966, over two decades after Pollock’s tragic death. This emphasised how Lee Krasner finally fully expressed herself as an artist following Pollock’s passing.
• Paul Cezanne’s Still Life With Apples, painted 1895
• A couple of giant Claude Monet early water lilies paintings
• David Alfaro Siqueiros (he was said to be one of the first ever people to throw his paint – in the base layers of his paintings – and even told Jackson Pollock to do so when he was tutoring him at art college. I’ve talked about this in a couple of blog posts. You can see bits of this in his painting that was on display.)
• Roy Lichtenstein’s Girl With Ball, 1961 – one of the first pop art style painted portrait images. My own artwork is partly inspired by this style! Read my blog post exploring Roy Lichtenstein and his art style here.
• Mark Rothko’s colour field paintings
• A lot of Picassos but these ones didn’t do it for me
The Jackson Pollocks on display were part of a lot of abstract expressionist paintings there, which was a very significant art movement originating in New York in the 1940s and 50s, born out of the Great Depression and WWII and the desire for creative expression. Abstract expressionism even contributed to global USA-Soviet culture wars and was a geopolitical tool. I’ve learnt a lot about this over the last few months while writing my first blog posts for www.bykerwin.com, so check those out and look out for more upcoming posts soon.
Learning about the artistic heritage of New York adds a new dimension to the city for me and also adds some extra meaning to my own portrait action paintings. Explore my full range of paintings, read my blog and shop prints at www.bykerwin.com.
My own range of ‘By Kerwin’ paintings capture some of the biggest icons from the world of music and pop culture in a never-before-seen way. My full range of Jackson Pollock-inspired acrylic paintings can be viewed at www.bykerwin.com – the originals and prints of these are available to purchase, with worldwide delivery.
