Franz Kline is celebrated for his powerfully gestural black-and-white paintings that incorporate abstract motifs and physical brushwork. Less known, however, is the artist’s stylistic experimentation that preceded and, in some ways, presaged the artist’s now iconic work.

Originally trained as a figurative painter, Kline was an exceptional draftsman. Unlike other post-war Abstract Expressionists who sought out European precedents, Kline embraced the urban landscape of New York City and rural industrial scenes around his childhood home of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Marked by a distinctly realist approach, the work from this period shows Kline grappling with what he wanted to paint and who he wanted to be as an artist. Although representational in appearance, the paintings reveal the flattened space, reduction of form, bold outlines, and daring composition that would define Kline’s mature work.

In Still Life of around 1946, Kline uses the traditional artistic subject to work out his evolving ideas about abstraction and all-over composition. He uses bold color to suggest the way the still life actually appeared but does not use it to describe. Rather the color captures the energy. Similarly, the strong brushwork, particularly the way he uses the black paint, is gestural and broadly defines the forms. The composition and style of this style life clearly look forward to his later work.

Of early works, New York Times art critic Roberta Smith wrote: