Harold Rosenberg

Harold Rosenberg (1906–1978) was an American art critic who described action painting as an event enacted on canvas, emphasizing the painter’s act over the finished image.

Action painting: An approach to painting that treats the act of making marks as central to the work. Rosenberg coined this term for the event-like painting practiced by postwar American artists.
The American Action Painters: Harold Rosenberg’s 1952 essay describing a new approach to American abstract painting. It sets out his influential account of the canvas as an arena for action.
Partisan Review: An American literary and political magazine founded in 1934. Rosenberg published criticism in this influential journal of intellectual debate.
The abstract expressionist debate: A critical dispute over the meaning, value, and defining features of Abstract Expressionist art. Rosenberg’s account became one side of the movement’s defining critical disagreement.
Abstract expressionism: A postwar art movement centered on abstract painting, especially in the United States. Rosenberg’s writing helped define how this movement was understood.
Artist's gesture: A visible movement or mark through which an artist’s physical action enters an artwork. Rosenberg treated gesture as evidence of the painter’s encounter with the canvas.
The New York intellectuals: A group of writers and critics associated with mid-century intellectual life in New York. Rosenberg’s critical career developed within this overlapping literary and political milieu.
Art criticism: The analysis and evaluation of visual artworks and artistic practices. His writing expanded criticism’s attention from formal qualities to the act of creation.
Jackson Pollock: An American painter known for large canvases made through poured, dripped, and flung paint. Pollock’s physical painting practice exemplified the action Rosenberg described.
Artistic process: The sequence of decisions and actions through which an artwork is made. His criticism shifts attention from a painting’s appearance to its making.

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