Franz Kline (May 23, 1910 – May 13, 1962) was an American painter. He is associated with the Abstract Expressionist movement of the 1940s and 1950s. Kline, along with other action painters like Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Robert Motherwell, John Ferren, and Lee Krasner, as well as local poets, dancers, and musicians came to be known as the informal group, the New York School. Although he explored the same innovations to painting as the other artists in this group, Kline's work is distinct in itself and has been revered since the 1950s. Born in Pennsylvania in 1910, Franz Kline grew up in orphanages. 1931 – 1935 he studied art at Boston University. In 1947, he transitioned from figure to abstract technique. Beginning to explore a black-and-white palette with a series of ink in paper sketches
Kline applied this technique to canvases and used wide strokes with black-and-white transitions.
Hans Namuth (American, born Germany, 1915-1990). Franz Kline, New York, 1954. Gelatin silver print, sheet: 10 1/2 x 13 1/2 inches (26.7 x 34.3 cm). Collection Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York; Gift of Seymour H. Knox, Jr., 1976 (K1976:4.50).
Franz Kline, Mahoning, 1956. Oil and paper collage on canvas, 80 × 100 in. (203.2 × 254 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Drawing Related to painting no.2 1954
Untitled signed "KLINE" lower left ink on telephone book page mounted on paper 11 7/8 x 9 5/8 in. (30.2 x 24.4 cm.) Executed circa 1950
Painting no.7 1952 oil on canvas 57 1/2 x 81 3/4 inches (146.1 x 207.6 cm)
Franz Kline Untitled circa' 1947
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