Movements

Abstract Art: The 'First' Painting Its Museum Backdated

A Kandinsky watercolour signed 1910 was long called the first abstract painting. Its own museum now dates it 1913, after a Swedish painter got there first.

Pop Art: The Collage That Said 'Pop' Before the Movement Had a Name

A 1947 collage carried the word "pop" nine years before Richard Hamilton's famous version, and fifteen before any essay printed the phrase "Pop Art."

Art Deco: The Style Nobody Called That for 41 Years

The 1925 Paris expo credited with launching Art Deco never used the name. Neither did the Chrysler Building. The term didn't reach print until 1966.

Renaissance Art: The Book That Named It Also Invented a Murder

Giorgio Vasari's 1550 book gave "Renaissance art" its name and invented a murder confession that took an archivist three centuries to disprove using burial records.

Art Styles: The Movement Names That Started as Insults

Impressionism, Fauvism, and Cubism all began as a critic's put-down. Baroque and Gothic carried the insult even longer before scholars made the names official.

Psychedelic Art Started in a Psychiatrist's Office, Not the Fillmore

A Los Angeles psychiatrist gave LSD to artists starting in 1954, twelve years before the Fillmore's posters. Their trademark lettering was borrowed, not tripped into.

Non-Objective Art: The Curator the Guggenheim Wrote Out of Its Name

Hilla Rebay named a Guggenheim museum after this term in 1939 and picked Frank Lloyd Wright to build it a home. She was pushed out in 1952, before either one survived her.

Monochromatic Painting: What's Hiding Under the Black Square

X-rays found two paintings and a disputed inscription under Malevich's 1915 Black Square. Klein never patented his blue, and Reinhardt's black held three different tones.