Franz Kline was born in 1910 in
Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and died suddenly in 1962 in
New York City of an undiagnosed rheumatic heart problem. He was educated at
Boston University, and while there he began taking art classes at the Boston Art Students League (1931-1935). In 1935, he moved to
London and studied art at Heatherley’s from 1936 to 1938, before returning and settling in New York in 1939. During the early 1940's. Kline painted mainly
cityscapes, especially the
coal-mining district where he grew up, but also was commissioned to do several portraits. Although he was a young artist, by 1945 he had received several
National Academy of Design Annuals awards.
In the mid 1940's Kline was introduced to
Willem de Kooning and
Jackson Pollock, whose influences can be seen almost immediately in his work at that time. Another huge influence upon his work was his deep interest in
Japanese art. By the end of the 1940's, his work (which was first shown at the Egan in New York in 1950), painted in broad strokes of black and white enamel, was reminiscent of abstracted Japanese
ideograms. He insisted that although the paintings appear to be nonrepresentative, they were in fact based on experiences in his world, often referencing places around the area of Pennsylvania in which he was raised. Sometimes working closely with Willem de Kooning, Kline often took tiny detail sections of realistic sketches, then blew them up to wall-sized proportions and added bold brush strokes, emphasizing the way the lines move across the piece.
After only a few showings, his work was recognized as a major force in the still-developing
Abstract Expressionist movement. Kline worked with a wide variety of media and palettes, although his best-known works are still the massive black-and-white paintings, which he continued to paint until the end of his life. In the years just before his death, he travelled in Europe, mostly around Italy, and his work was included in several international shows, where his work won several prizes.
"I don't decide in advance that I'm going to paint a definite experience, but in the act of painting, it becomes a genuine experience for me..." Franz Kline.
http://www.guggenheimcollection.org/site/artist_bio_77.html
http://www.npg.si.edu/cexh/artnews/kline.htm
http://www.articons.co.uk/kline.htm
http://www.arts-studio.com/franz-kline/