MoMA purchased Jackson Pollock’s Number 1A, 1948 (object no. 77.1950), an early institutional acquisition of a landmark drip painting that helped legitimate Abstract Expressionism within a major museum collection.
MoMA’s exhibition “Recent Acquisitions” included Pollock’s Number 1A, 1948 as an identified work in installation views—an early example of the museum publicly framing new acquisitions that aligned with emerging Abstract Expressionist practice.
MoMA presented “Abstract Painting and Sculpture in America”, a broad survey exhibition that (via installation-history links on collection records) included works such as Pollock’s Number 1A, 1948, situating American abstraction—including artists later central to Abstract Expressionism—within MoMA’s curatorial narrative.
MoMA accessioned Mark Rothko’s No. 10 (object no. 38.1952) as a gift of Philip Johnson, bringing a major early “classic” Rothko into the collection and strengthening MoMA’s holdings of color-field–leaning Abstract Expressionism.
MoMA accessioned Franz Kline’s Chief (object no. 2.1952) as a gift of Mr. and Mrs. David M. Solinger, an early museum commitment to Kline’s bold gestural abstraction as the movement gained visibility.
Curated by Dorothy C. Miller, “15 Americans” offered major museum visibility for leading mid-century U.S. artists and is widely regarded as a pivotal institutional platform for Abstract Expressionism (including dedicated presentation of Rothko and inclusion of Pollock and Still).
MoMA purchased Willem de Kooning’s Woman I (object no. 478.1953), securing a defining figure-based canvas of Abstract Expressionism for the permanent collection.
MoMA’s “Twelve Americans” continued the museum’s mid-1950s pattern of spotlighting contemporary U.S. artists through large-scale survey presentations, reinforcing the institutional context in which Abstract Expressionism was increasingly interpreted for the public.
MoMA mounted “Jackson Pollock” (Dec 1956–Feb 1957), a focused museum exhibition that further consolidated Pollock’s centrality to Abstract Expressionism for audiences shortly after his death (1956).
MoMA’s International Program launched “The New American Painting” in Basel, initiating a major eight-city European tour that prominently featured Abstract Expressionist painters and projected the movement internationally under MoMA’s auspices.
After its European itinerary, “The New American Painting as Shown in Eight European Countries” was presented at MoMA, described by Tate scholarship as a comprehensive MoMA-organized survey of Abstract Expressionism—bringing the traveling project back to its originating institution.
MoMA’s New York presentation of “The New American Painting as Shown in Eight European Countries” concluded, capping a high-profile cycle of institutional and international promotion that helped codify Abstract Expressionism’s canonical status by the end of the 1950s.
Museum of Modern Art exhibitions and acquisitions promoting Abstract Expressionism (1940–1960)
