Abstract expressionism is a post–
World War II art movement in American painting, developed in New York in the 1940s. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve international influence and put
New York City at the center of the western
art world, a role formerly filled by Paris. Although the term "abstract expressionism" was first applied to American art in 1946 by the art critic
Robert Coates, it had been first used in Germany in 1919 in the magazine
Der Sturm, regarding
German Expressionism. In the United States,
Alfred Barr was the first to use this term in 1929 in relation to works by
Wassily Kandinsky.