In 1946 the art critic Robert Coates, writing in the New Yorker, first used the term 'Abstract Expressionism'. The two words combine the emotional intensity of the German Expressionists with the anti-figurative aesthetic of the European Abstract schools. Although they were being painted by then little-known artists working in low-rent studio space, works of Abstract Expressionist art now dominate the walls of major museums.

This important publication re-evaluates the movement, recognising its complex and fluid reality, and branching further into multimedia. As such, this book encompasses sculptors such as David Smith and photographers such as Aaron Siskind as well as some of the most famous painters of the twentieth century, including Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, Franz Kline, Arshile Gorky and Clyfford Still.