Franz Kline (American, 1910–1962), best known for the energetic, linear brushstrokes of his black-and-white paintings, was a key figure of abstract expressionism. Beginning his career by depicting the vivacity and chaos of city life, Kline’s practice became completely non-representational with his work Rice Paper Abstract (1949). Though this survey featured examples of Kline’s more figurative early work, its primacy focus was his abstract signature style. Kline’s art is a search for truth and honesty in a large-scale arena, much like the work of Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock. Believing the final test of a work to be whether the painter’s emotion is evident, Kline’s canvases are charged with an aggressive, emotional energy, with their brushstrokes extending out beyond the confines of the canvas.

Organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, the exhibition also traveled to the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts and the San Francisco Museum of Art.