Who was the youngest of the first-generation Abstract Expressionist painters?

Who was the youngest of the first-generation Abstract Expressionist painters? Robert Motherwell was.

Born in 1915, Motherwell was younger than many central figures of the New York School, including Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, and Adolph Gottlieb. “Youngest” refers to the commonly defined first generation, not to every artist later associated with Abstract Expressionism.

Motherwell initially pursued philosophy and studied at Stanford and Harvard before beginning doctoral work in art history at Columbia University. His intellectual background became part of his artistic identity: he wrote extensively about modern art, edited The Dada Painters and Poets, and helped articulate the movement’s ideas.

His art was shaped by European Surrealism, especially automatism, the practice of allowing spontaneous marks and associations to guide creation. He is particularly known for the Elegies to the Spanish Republic, a long-running series of mournful black-and-white abstractions. The label does not mean he was a latecomer; he was a founding participant in the movement’s early New York circle.