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Franz Kline (1910-1962)

Aliases: Franz Josef Kline; Franz Joseph Kline; Franz Rowe Kline

Professions: Painter

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    Franz Kline (1910-1962)

    Franz Kline (1910-1962)

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    Franz Kline (1910-1962)

    Franz Kline (1910-1962)

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    l - FRANZ KLINE

    l - FRANZ KLINE

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    Untitled

    Untitled

Franz Kline Biography

(b Wilkes-Barre, PA, 23 May 1910; d New York, 13 May 1962). American painter. His first academic training was at Boston University from 1931 to 1935 and in London at the Heatherley School of Art from 1937 to 1938 as an illustrator and draughtsman. Two main tendencies emerged at an early stage that would later develop into a powerful contribution to the ‘gestural’ trend within ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM. Numerous small graphics, sketches and oils and the mural series Hot Jazz (Norfolk, VA, Chrysler Mus.), painted for a New York bar in 1940, reveal an interest in translating animated subjects into quick, rudimentary strokes. Kline admired and found inspiration in a wide range of artists notable for their fluency in handling paint, including Rembrandt, Goya, Manet, Sargent and Whistler. By contrast, an inclination to compose in terms of simplified areas was derived from academic training and perhaps also reflected Kline’s memories of his native Pennsylvania’s coal-mining region, with its stark scenery, locomotives and similar massive mechanical shapes to which the titles of his later abstract images sometimes referred. Nijinsky as Petrouchka (1948; Cedarhurst, NY, Mr and Mrs I. David Orr priv. col., see Gaugh, 1985 exh. cat., p. 66) and similar canvases marked the climax of this representational phase with their combination of vigorous brushwork and an angular substructure. But against the context of contemporary New York painting a move towards abstraction was inevitable.

Grove Art excerpts - Electronic ©2003, Oxford Art Online

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  • FRANZ KLEIN ORIGINAL OIL PAINTING ON CANVAS, Franz Kline, $50,000

    Franz Kline

    FRANZ KLEIN ORIGINAL OIL PAINTING ON CANVAS

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