Styles & Movements

New Image

This vague and rather unhelpful term has been loosely applied to a group of contemporary artists who began doing interesting work involving figuration in the 1970s. Philip Guston, who abandoned Abstract Expressionism for a comic-strip style of figuration, is regarded as the progenitor of New Image Painting. Other American artists who have been labelled New Image painters include Jennifer Bartlett, Jonathan Borofsky, and Susan Rothenberg. In Britain the term "New Image" has been applied particularly to painters of the1980s Glasgow School.