Objective abstraction

Objective Abstraction was a non-geometric, free style of abstract art developed by a group of British artists in the early 1930s. The tendency took definitive shape during the eponymous exhibition "Objective Abstractions," held in 1934 at London's Zwemmer Gallery. Unlike the strict geometric Constructivism widespread in Europe at the time, these artists worked in a manner of spontaneous, sensuous, almost improvisational brushwork, in which abstract form grew directly from the very process of painting rather than from a preconceived scheme. Painting appeared as a self-sufficient reality of color and texture, "objective" precisely because it did not depict the external world but existed as an independent material fact. Members of the group included Rodrigo Moynihan, Geoffrey Tibble, and Graham Bell. Objective Abstraction to some extent anticipated later Tachisme and Abstract Expressionism with their emphasis on gesture and the autonomy of the painted surface. Although the movement was short-lived, it became an important episode of early British abstract art.