Go down the stairs at Amar Gallery in Islington to encounter a gem of a show about the female Abstract Impressionist artists working at the same time as those male painters we’re already so familiar with: Pollock, Rothko, De Kooning, Newman etc. It was a very macho movement with the women producing work of equal power and interest but not promoted in the same way due to their gender.
One of the better known women was Helen Frankenthaler whose charismatic Moon Spin I could have sat in front of for hours.
Other impressive work included Warm Rain I by Ethel Schwabacher
and one of her luminous colour studies
White by Grace Hartigan reminded me of the colouring of Jackson Pollocks’ Blue Poles – hers is dated a year before his painting.
Untitled, Bull abstract by Elaine de Kooning captures the force and dynamism of the beast.
I can see a direct link between the work of Mary Abbott’s Untitled – Haiti and that of Chris Ofili 50 years later.
