Leonard Hutton Galleries is pleased to present an exhibition of artworks by renowned first generation “Irascible” and New York School artists James Brooks, Willem de Kooning, Jimmy Ernst, Sam Francis, Adolph Gottlieb, Hans Hofmann, Lee Krasner, Robert Motherwell, Jackson Pollock, Richard Pousette-Dart, Theodore Roszak, David Smith and Jack Tworkov. On view at the gallery from March 15-May 15, 2013.

The Irascibles were a group of American abstract artists who, in 1950, signed an open letter, to the president of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, rejecting the museum's exhibition: American Painting Today – 1950, and boycotting the accompanying competition. The subsequent media coverage of the protest and a now iconic group photograph, that appeared in Life magazine, gave them notoriety, popularized the term Abstract Expressionist and established them as the first generation of the acknowledged movement.

Post World War II Jackson Pollock’s radical approach to painting revolutionized the potential for all subsequent Contemporary art. Many other Abstract expressionists followed Pollock’s lead with breakthroughs of their own.  It can be said that the innovations of Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Hans Hofmann, Richard Pousette-Dart, Robert Motherwell and others opened the floodgates to the diversity and scope of all the art that followed them creating a new and exciting pictorial dialog that continues to challenge and intrigue viewers.

Many of the featured artworks are from the1950’s and 60’s including an important densely layered collage from1955 by Lee Krasner which redeployed sections of discarded paintings and drawings by her husband Jackson Pollock in tandem with new design elements she added to her own studio scraps.

Leonard Hutton Galleries Hours: Monday through Friday 10am–5:30pm and by appointment Press inquires: art@leonardhuttongalleries.com