KLINE, FRANZ

KLINE, FRANZ (1910–1962), U.S. painter. Kline was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., but grew up in Philadelphia, and attended the School of Fine and Applied Arts at Boston University from 1931 to 1935 and Heatherly's Art School, London (1937–38). He settled in New York in 1938, by which time his later colleagues in the Abstract-Expressionist movement were already installed in the city, moving toward the distinctly American form of art. Until the late 1940s Kline concentrated on urban landscapes, influenced by the great overwhelming structures of the metropolis, notably the linear skeletons of railways and bridges. Gradually, however, the nature of his brush-strokes took over so that huge drawings in black enamel, a quick-drying house paint, became abstract ideograms. As in the case of his contemporary, Mark Tobey, these seem to have their origin in Oriental calligraphy. Kline's work became increasingly abstract, although always with a strong representational background, so that one is tempted to "read" his work. The restriction to black and white was one of the characteristics of the newly emergent American school, but Kline's work was best suited to the monochrome limitation. Even at its most abstract, the great sweeps of the brushstroke across the canvas and the conglomeration of linear intersections seem to describe heavy, industrial cityscapes. Later Kline introduced color, so that the explosive energy and vitality of his brush strokes were allied with denser, more closed, definitions of space. Kline had considerable influence on a number of distinguished younger painters, among them philip guston , jack tworkov , and Milton Resnick. Kline's first one-man exhibition was at the Egan Gallery, New York, in 1950; his work has since been exhibited in most parts of the world and is represented in major American exhibitions and important collections of modern art in Europe. (Charles Samuel Spencer)