Franz Kline

Franz Kline – Life, Art & Memorable Quotes

Learn about Franz Kline (1910–1962), a leading Abstract Expressionist painter known for his bold black-and-white compositions. Explore his biography, artistic evolution, philosophy, and standout quotations.

Introduction

Franz Kline was an American painter whose monumental, gestural, and high-contrast work became one of the defining voices of Abstract Expressionism and the New York School. While his paintings often appear spontaneous and raw, they conceal a deep attention to structure, drawing, and balance. Kline’s bold black strokes against white fields continue to influence modern abstraction and debates about gesture, form, and emotion in art.

Early Life & Education

• Born: May 23, 1910, in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, U.S.

• Died: May 13, 1962, in New York City (from rheumatic heart disease)

• He initially trained in more representational and commercial modes: Kline studied illustration and worked with draftsmanship, murals, and figurative painting in the 1930s and 1940s.

• He also studied in London (Heatherley School of Fine Art) in the late 1930s, which contributed to his engagement with European art traditions.

In his early period, Kline painted landscapes, interiors, and industrial motifs, sometimes tied to the coal-mining and machinery environment of his Pennsylvania origins.

Artistic Development & Style

Transition to Abstraction & “Action Painting”

Kline began shifting from representational to abstract forms in the 1940s and 1950s. He became closely associated with Abstract Expressionism and action painting — a mode of painting that emphasizes spontaneity, gesture, brushwork, and physical involvement of the artist.

What made Kline unique in that milieu was his emphasis on extreme contrast (especially black vs white) and bold, sweeping brushstrokes that resemble calligraphic marks.

Though many see his paintings as raw improvisations, Kline often used preparatory sketches (on telephone book pages, for example) and composed structures behind his gestures—even if the finished work looks impulsive.

He sometimes rejected literal references to objects, insisting that his works are not symbolic or representational in the traditional sense; they are “painting experiences.”

Signature Features

• Palette: The most iconic works are in stark black and white, though occasionally he introduced tonal variations or touches of other colors.

• Gesture & Brushwork: Thick, dynamic, sweeping brushes that command space and energy. The brushstrokes often read like enlarged calligraphy or structural beams.

• Spatial Tension & Composition: Even in their seeming chaos, many works carry a careful sense of balance, negative space, rhythm, and tension.

• Resistance to Interpretation: Kline was wary of assigning fixed symbolic meaning to his paintings; he preferred them to evoke rather than define.

Legacy & Influence

• Kline is regarded as one of the most important voices in postwar American art, with work that bridges the gestural intensity of Expressionism and the minimal clarity that would follow in later abstract movements.

• Many later painters, including those in minimalism and monochrome traditions, cite his economy and power of gesture as influential.

• His market art value remains very high: for example, a large untitled black-and-white Kline (1957) sold at Christie’s for over $40 million (including fees) in 2012.

• Kline’s approach encouraged artists and scholars to think about abstraction not just as color field or form, but as an expressive architecture of gesture, space, and presence.

Selected Quotes

Here are some of Franz Kline’s more resonant statements about painting, creativity, and perception:

“I paint not the things I see but the feelings they arouse in me.”

“People sometimes think I take a white canvas and paint a black sign on it, but this is not true. I paint the white as well as the black, and the white is just as important.”

“If you’re a painter, you are not alone. There’s no way to be alone. You think and you care and you’re with all the people who care.”

“You don’t paint the way someone, by observing his life, thinks you have to paint, you paint the way you have to, in order to give.”

“If I feel a painting I’m working on doesn’t have imagery or emotion, I paint it out and work over it until it does.”

“I do both: I make preliminary drawings, other times I paint directly … If a painting doesn’t work, throw it out.”

These quotes reveal Kline’s devotion to expressive force, self-reliance, and the dynamic relationship between intention and spontaneity.

Lessons and Reflections

• Gesture as language. Kline showed that brushstrokes themselves can be expressive, carrying emotion and structure without representing anything literal.

• Balance spontaneity and preparation. Even seemingly impulsive works rested upon underlying design and sketches.

• Whitespace matters. His insistence that “white is just as important” reminds us that what is withheld is as potent as what is deposited.

• Permission to revise continuously. Kline often painted over or “destroyed” earlier forms in favor of something more alive.

• Art as lived experience. His refusal to over-interpret suggests a faith in the viewer’s ability to feel, respond, and complete the experience.