Franz Kline

American painter 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 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. Art historian David Anfam notes that artists working during Kline's life and after—such as Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly, Mark di Suvero, and Brice Marden—have all called Kline an inspiration. Franz Kline died on 13 May 1962, aged 51, in New York City. In 2012 San Francisco financier George R. Roberts sold a nearly ten-foot wide, untitled black-and-white work by Kline from 1957 at Christie's, New York. The painting went to a telephone bidder for $36 million, or $40.4 million with fees. Link to Wikipedia biography