Harold Rosenberg coined the term “action painting” to describe a new direction in Abstract Expressionist painting.
He first used the phrase in his essay “The American Action Painters,” published in the December 1952 issue of ARTnews. Rosenberg’s formulation shifted attention away from a painting as a finished object and toward the physical and psychological act of making it.
For Rosenberg, the canvas was “an arena in which to act.” The artist’s gestures, decisions, revisions, and movements were central to the work’s meaning. This interpretation was especially associated with painters such as Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Franz Kline, whose forceful brushwork or poured lines made process visible.
“Action painting” is closely related to Abstract Expressionism, but the terms are not perfectly interchangeable. Abstract Expressionism is the broader movement; action painting identifies one major tendency within it. It is also distinct from Color Field painting, which emphasizes expansive areas of relatively unbroken color rather than the drama of gesture.