Hard-Edge Painting

A term first used in 1958 by the critic Jules Langsner to describe the work of West Coast painters rejecting the brushy look of Abstract Expressionism. It later became used for all American work that treated the picture surface as a single flat surface. These paintings took on a geometrical look and usually had a limited palette. The style was popular through the 1950's and was practiced by such painters as Kenneth Noland, Ellsworth Kelly, and Karl Benjamin.