In the decades following World War II, many artists redirected abstraction toward everyday imagery, new materials, and experiences. This installation brings together artists associated with Pop Art, Op Art, the Washington Color School, Hard-Edge painting, and Minimalism, alongside contemporary artists working in dialogue with these movements. While these postwar approaches differ in style, they share concerns shaped by the cultural and social changes of the era. Across these movements, artists favored reduced forms, seriality, and process over expressive gesture—strategies that continue to shape contemporary art.
Image Credits:
Robert Indiana, Coenties Slip, 1962, oil on canvas, 60 x 48 in., Oklahoma City Museum of Art, Museum purchase, Washington Gallery of Modern Art Collection, 1968.152, © Morgan Art Foundation Ltd. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, photo © Oklahoma City Museum of Art
Tadasky (Tadasuke Kuwayama), C-182, 1965, acrylic on canvas, 56 x 56 in., Oklahoma City Museum of Art, Museum purchase with funds from the Beaux Arts Society Fund for Acquisitions and the Pauline Morrison Ledbetter Collections Endowment, 2016.064, © Tadasuke Kuwayama, photo © Oklahoma City Museum of Art
Ellsworth Kelly, Red Blue, 1963, oil on canvas, 90 x 69 1/2 in., Oklahoma City Museum of Art, Museum purchase, Washington Gallery of Modern Art Collection, 1968.155, © Ellsworth Kelly Foundation, photo © Oklahoma City Museum of Art
