Which critic coined the term 'Action Painting' in a 1952 essay?

Harold Rosenberg coined the term “Action Painting” in his 1952 essay “The American Action Painters.”

Published in the December 1952 issue of ARTnews, Rosenberg’s essay described painting as an event or act rather than merely a finished object. He focused on the physical and psychological struggle involved in making a work, especially in the practices of Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, and Franz Kline.

Action painting became closely associated with Abstract Expressionism, although the labels are not exact synonyms. The style emphasizes spontaneous gestures such as dripping, splashing, brushing, or smearing paint. Clement Greenberg was another major critic of the movement, but he generally emphasized the formal qualities and “objectness” of the completed painting rather than Rosenberg’s focus on the artist’s action.

Some later scholarship has traced related ideas about artistic “action” to earlier writers, including Wolfgang Paalen. Nevertheless, Rosenberg is the standard answer for the critic who coined the term in the specific 1952 essay.