Reclining Figure Facing Left

1938

Returning to the United States with Elizabeth Parsons

In 1938 Kline returns to the United States, accompanied by Elizabeth Parsons, the British ballet dancer he met in England. On his return he works as a designer for a department store.

1939

Moving to New York and working for a scenic designer

In 1939 Kline moves to New York City and works for a scenic designer. It is here that he develops his artistic techniques and gains recognition as a significant artist; in the late 1930s and early 1940s he paints figurative landscapes and cityscapes as well as commissioned portraits and murals.

late 1940s

From figuration to lines and planes

From the late 1940s Kline generalizes his figurative subjects into lines and planes that fit together much like the Cubism of the time. Many of his forms derive from the locomotives, stark landscapes and large mechanical shapes of his native coal-mining region of Pennsylvania — sometimes apparent only from the titles of the works.

1948

Projecting a sketch on the wall: de Kooning's advice

According to Elaine de Kooning, in 1948 Willem de Kooning advises an artistically frustrated Kline to project a sketch onto his studio wall with a Bell-Opticon projector: a four-by-five-inch black drawing of a rocking chair swells into gigantic strokes, and it is widely believed that Kline then turns to large-scale abstract works. Willem himself conceded that working out this vision took considerable time.

1948–1950

The turn to black-and-white abstraction

Over the next two years Kline's brushstrokes become completely non-representative, fluid and dynamic, and he begins painting only in black and white: for him the white is just as important as the black. Viewers also see references to Japanese calligraphy in these paintings, through his exchange with the avant-garde group Bokujinkai and its leader Morita Shiryu, although Kline later denied the connection.

16 October – 4 November 1950

First solo show at the Charles Egan Gallery

At the Charles Egan Gallery in New York Kline's first one-man show opens: eleven abstract paintings with very little colour — brown underpainting near the bottom of “Nijinsky” and fleeting hints of green in “Leda”. Afterwards he is dubbed the “black and white artist”, a label by which he sometimes feels restricted.