Quiz: which Abstract Expressionist are you?

Quiz: which Abstract Expressionist are you?

By RA digital team

Published 21 September 2016

Are you a sensible socialite or a bar brawler? Are you ruled by ideals or impulses? Take the quiz to find your kindred Abstract Expressionist spirit, as its biggest characters take over our galleries.

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<section><h2>Which Abstract Expressionist are you?</h2><p><div>The movement that dominated New York's art scene in the 1950s came with a pack of interesting characters... Take the quiz to find out if you're a jazzy Jackson Pollock or a mellow Mark Rothko.</div></p></section><section><h2>You are... Jackson Pollock</h2><p><div><i>“Painting is no problem. The problem is what to do when you're not painting.”</i></div><div><br></div><div>Well, you're quite the star aren't you? Like the best-known of the Abstract Expressionists, you're dynamic, unpredictable and highly original; a leader in your field, but not without your struggles. Pollock was poverty-stricken and gripped by alcoholism when the high profile gallerist Peggy Guggenheim gave him a one-man show. His drip paintings became some of the 20th century’s most immediately iconic works, and he was among the first in the "Ab Ex" pack to experience commercial success.</div><div><br></div><div>You have an immense and captivating energy – "born with too big an engine inside,” as one of Pollock's friends once described him. That energy might manifest as a burst of genius creativity, or sometimes the odd bar brawl (check out some of the famous surviving hangouts in this <a href="https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/article/abstract-expressionism-1950s-artist-hangouts-map" target="_blank">interactive map</a>). </div><div><br></div><div>Your near-mythic status has resulted in a number of hazy legends from nights gone by; perhaps you drunkenly had a wee in someone's fireplace, as Pollock is said to have done at Peggy Guggenheim’s house, after he installed <i>Mural</i>. We'll never know. </div><div><br></div></p></section><section><h3>You are... Joan Mitchell</h3><p><div><i>“When I was discouraged I wondered if really women couldn’t paint, the way all the men said they couldn’t paint. But then at other times I said, “F*** them,” you know?"</i></div><div><br></div><div>Tough as nails and with talent to spare, you let nothing and no-one stand in your way, just like Joan Mitchell – one of a number of women who bulldozed their way into the boys' club that was Abstract Expressionism. She made her mark on the New York scene young, before spending much of her life in France. She described her vibrant, colourful paintings as “expressionist landscapes”; depicting not nature itself but the feelings it evoked in her. </div><div><br></div><div>No fan of false modesty, you insist on receiving credit where it’s rightfully due. Mitchell’s refusal to be sidelined earned her paintings recognition, in an age that often dismissed female painters as hobbyists. </div><div><br></div><div>Famously combative and known for her ability to swear like a sailor, Mitchell nonetheless won people over with her sharp wit and disarming humour. On examining one early exhibition, she gave herself the dry review: “Not bad, for a lady painter.”</div><div><br></div><div><i>Image: France - September 1956: Portrait of American-born painter Joan Mitchell in her studio. (Photo by Loomis Dean/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images)</i></div></p></section><section><h3>You are... Willem de Kooning</h3><p><div><i>“I don't paint to live, I live to paint.” </i></div><div><br></div><div>Charming and intelligent, your charisma is almost as great a gift as your artistic talent. Like de Kooning, you’re daring, adventurous and will live a long and colourful life. Born in the Netherlands, de Kooning stowed away on a ship to America aged 22. He lived much of his early life in poverty, eating ketchup to survive, before becoming one of Abstract Expressionism’s most respected and celebrated painters. He lived to age 92.</div><div><br></div><div>Your gift of the gab inspires others to seek out your company, but be careful how you use your charm: both de Kooning and his wife, the artist Elaine de Kooning, had numerous affairs and eventually separated for almost 20 years, reuniting in the 1970s. </div><div><br></div><div>You’ve never been afraid to try new things, but that doesn’t mean you don't care what people think. De Kooning had a rocky relationship with critics in his own lifetime, many having responded badly to the stylistic shifts in his career. These tensions came to a head at the <a href="https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/article/new-york-nights-manhattan-of-abex" target="_blank">Cedar Street Tavern in 1961</a>: the critic Clement Greenberg had recently commented in a lecture that de Kooning was "finished" as a painter – so de Kooning punched him in the face. Work on keeping your cool.</div></p></section><section><h3>You are... Mark Rothko</h3><p><div><i>“Many of those who are driven to this life are desperately searching for those pockets of silence where we can root and grow. We must all hope we find them.” </i></div><div><br></div><div>Intellectual and deeply political, you and Mark Rothko share a sense of social justice and artistic integrity. An émigré who arrived in the US from Latvia aged 10, Rothko’s friends described him as simultaneously outgoing and shy; a perfectionist who infused his artworks with philosophical and mythological references. </div><div><br></div><div>Confident in your convictions, you may find success harder to cope with than failure: after years of struggle and poverty, Rothko struggled to reconcile the high prices his artworks came to command with his socialist beliefs. </div><div><br></div><div>Maintaining your ideals isn’t always easy and you may find yourself agonising over decisions that would be no-brainers to others. Rothko believed passionately that his work should be displayed in the right environment, famously changing his mind about an exclusive commission from the Four Seasons' restaurant in New York part-way through the project. Instead of delivering the <i>Seagram Murals</i> there, he returned the money he’d been paid and donated them to the Tate instead, where they are now honoured with their own room in Tate Modern and remain publicly accessible. This room would be an excellent spot for your contemplations.</div><div><br></div><div><i>Image: Consuelo Kanaga (American, 1894-1978). </i>[Untitled] (<i>Mark Rothko). Gelatin silver photograph, Sheet: 10 x 8 in. (25.4 x 20.3 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Wallace B. Putnam from the Estate of Consuelo Kanaga, 82.65.409. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 82.65.409_PS2.jpg)</i></div></p></section><section><h3>You are... Clyfford Still</h3><p><div><i>“I am not interested in illustrating my time. A man's "time" limits him; it does not truly liberate him.”</i></div><div><br></div><div>Just like Clyfford Still, you are an original and a bit of a perfectionist. With a powerful sense of purpose and strong artistic ideals, you don't shy away from saying what you think – as Still didn't in 1955, when he lost his temper with former friend Rothko, writing of his "need for sycophants and flattery" in a letter to the art dealer, Sidney Janis.</div><div><br></div><div>While you might like to think you’re above the comments of others, perhaps you’re more easily riled than you let on. Although he checked out of the New York scene fairly early on and moved to the countryside, Still’s correspondence shows he remained well-informed of all goings-on in the city – and didn’t hesitate to let people know it. When one leading art critic wrote him a negative review, he promptly sent her a pair of rubber incontinence pants, with a note that said: “Hoping this will aid in concealing your Sunday affliction. With the compliments of Clyfford Still.”</div><div>Said pants can now be seen at the <a href="http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/items/detail/rubber-underpants-11638" target="_blank">Archives of American Art</a>. </div><div><br></div><div>You’ll usually get what you want in the end, but be warned, you may have to wait a while: Still’s determination to secure a fitting home for his artworks saw them sitting in a warehouse for 30 years after his death (fingernail clippings were discovered stuck to some works, oddly). Eventually in 2011, the city of Denver met every condition in his will by building <a href="https://clyffordstillmuseum.org/" target="_blank">a museum solely for his work</a>, which can rarely lend his works or show any other artist alongside him. </div><div><br></div></p></section><section><h2>1. Which of these best describes your personal style?</h2></section><section><h3>2. What are your most appealing qualities?</h3></section><section><h3>3. Which of these questionable acts sounds most like you?</h3></section><section><h3>4. Who most inspires you?</h3></section><section><h3>5. When you’re not painting, you are…</h3></section><section><h3>6. You need to escape the city. Where do you go?</h3></section><section><h3>7. What happens when the money runs out?</h3></section><section><h3>8. Someone criticises your work. Do you...</h3></section><section><h3>9. What’s the worst thing someone could call you?</h3></section><section><h3>10. What's your tipple?</h3></section><section><h3>11. Which of these statements do you agree with most?</h3></section>

Text: Amy Macpherson, Sandra MacKenzie, Jessica Poole, Louise Cohen, Kate Devine

Abstract Expressionism is in the Main Galleries at the RA from 24 September 2016 – 2 January 2017.
The exhibition tours to the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao from 3 February – 4 June 2017.

Quiz: which Abstract Expressionist are you?

By RA digital team

Published 21 September 2016

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