nd together as a beleaguered community." (Frank Romani). Just as Paris had nurtured such foreign artists such as Picasso, Gris, and Chagall, along with its host of native French masters, New York attracted a cosmopolitan assortment of aspiring painters and sculptors. The reason why many foreign artists migrated to New York was because European artists were in an area that was occupied by World War II. Many artists fled from Europe to the United States, which stifled artistic expression in Europe while at the same time stimulated artistic expression in America. New York became an artist's utopia. The rise of imperialism created American pride and patriotism. Artists expressed themselves freely without anyone trying to control their expression or ideas. World War II helped the New York School of Artists perfect their methodology and aided them in their search for significant content. The Abstract Expressionists as a group shared a common experience, however, as individuals they did not think of themselves as a group with common ideals. Similarities between artists were that they all wanted to use personal intuition to make something new and distinctively American, yet universally valid and unprovincial. Within The Abstract Expressionist Movement, there were different groups of artists that had a particular style. The first to break through and make a significant impact on the art world was Jackson Pollock (1912-56). The paintings that Pollock exhibited in 1943 made the first and most emphatic public expression of the new mood. Pollock was a major influence on the art world because he pushed Expressionism to a point where "subject matter was so improbable that all need to retain it had been eliminated" (Story of Pollock p. 28). Pollock's technique of spreading uncut lengths of canvas over the floor and of pouring or flinging liquid paint onto it from above permitted him to literally be in the painting, to move about within it...
