FRANZ KLINE

Franz Kline (May 23, 1910 – May 13, 1962) was an American painter. He is associated with
the Abstract Expressionist movement of the 1940s and 1950s. Kline, along with other action
painters like Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Robert Motherwell and Lee Krasner, as well
as local poets, dancers, and musicians came to be known as the informal group, the New York
School. Although he explored the same innovations to painting as the other artists in this
group, Kline's work is distinct in itself and has been revered since the 1950s.

Kline was born in Wilkes-Barre, a small coal-mining community in Eastern Pennsylvania. When
he was seven years old, Kline's father committed suicide. During his youth he moved
to Lehighton, Pennsylvania and graduated from Lehighton High School. His mother later
remarried and sent him to Girard College, an academy in Philadelphia for fatherless boys. After
graduation from high school, Kline studied art at Boston University from 1931 to 1935, then
spent a year in England attending the Heatherley School of Fine Art in London. During this
time, he met his future wife, Elizabeth V. Parsons, a British ballet dancer. She returned to the
United States with Kline in 1938.

Upon his return to the country, Kline worked as a designer for a department store in New York
state. He then moved to New York City in 1939 and worked for a scenic designer. It was during
this time in New York that Kline developed his artistic techniques and gained recognition as a
significant artist.

While generally his paintings have a spontaneous, and dramatic impact, Kline often closely
referred to his compositional drawings. Kline carefully rendered many of his most complex
pictures from extensive studies, commonly created on refuse telephone book pages. Unlike his
fellow Abstract Expressionists, Kline's works were only meant to look like they were done in a
moment of inspiration; however, each painting was extensively explored before his
housepainter's brush touched the canvas.

Kline is recognized as one of the most important yet problematic artists of the Abstract
Expressionist movement in New York. His style is difficult for critics to interpret in relation to his
contemporaries. As with Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and other Abstract
Expressionists, Kline was said to be an action painter because of his seemingly spontaneous
and intense style, focusing not at all on figures or imagery, but on the expression of his
brushstrokes and use of canvas. However, Kline's paintings are deceptively subtle

”Suspended” Franz Kline - 1953