With the rise of Abstract Expressionism in the late 1940s and 1950s, the centre of the art world shifted from Paris to New York, and postwar art can in many respects be said to have begun with this movement. By the 1990s, opportunities to encounter Abstract Expressionist works had become increasingly common in Japan, and many museums had acquired important examples. Yet no exhibition had previously been devoted specifically to the movement at its height.
Continuing the Museum’s long-standing commitment to introducing contemporary American art since the days of the Seibu Museum of Art, this exhibition brought together approximately 70 works by sixteen artists, focusing primarily on the 1950s.
Among the works exhibited were No. 9 (1950) by Jackson Pollock and No. 7 (1960) by Mark Rothko, both from the collection of Sezon Museum of Modern Art.