Neo-expressionism

Known as beyond the avant-garde in Italian, the new wild ones in German. Emerging as a reaction to the highly conceptualized and minimalist styles which had dominated the 1970s, the Neo-expressionist movement developed significantly across the USA, Germany, and Italy, as a contemporary revival of the early expressionist manner. 

The style was characterized by a radical return to figurative and sensuous art, to more recognizable visual depictions of objects, and to a vividly expressive use of color which gestured to the decadence and consumerism of the post-war art world. High textural brushwork and emotive narratives were to be found at the heart of this movement. 

The work of Julian Schnabel, David Salle, Eric Fischl, and Jean-Michel Basquiat has often been closely associated with the proliferation of the neo-expressionist style across the USA. Their textural experimentations, communicative photography, and bold use of color and narrative now offer us an indispensable insight into the contemporary artistic trajectory following the 1970s.

Elsewhere across the globe, significant contributions to this unorthodox pictorial and compositional style were made by the Italian Sandro Chia and Francesco Clemente, as well as the German Anselm Kiefer and Georg Baselitz. Join us as we discover some of the quintessential neo-expressionist works, as well as pieces which have since been inspired by this revolutionary movement.