Color Field painters arose in Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, and other countries in the late 1950s and early 1960s, utilizing formats such as targets, stripes, and basic geometric patterns. Color Field painters eschewed any indication of figuration in order to maximize the expressivity of color by using it in large fields.
“It was encapsulated in the notion of the ideograph, which is defined as a symbol, character or figure that communicates the concept of an object without stating its name”, according to a dictionary definition.
A new breed of painters was rising by the late 1950s. The new group featured painters like Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland, and Jules Olitski, and was partly influenced by Helen Frankenthaler.
Color Field painting arose from the late 1940s efforts of various artists to create a new, iconic art form. Color Field painting was a significant step forward in Abstract painting.
Color Field painting is made up of three distinct but connected generations of painters. The movements are sometimes referred to as Post-Painterly Abstraction, Abstract Expressionism, and Lyrical Abstraction.
Newer artists such as Ronald Davis, Frank Stella, Walter Darby Bannard, and Dan Christensen started with Post-Painterly Abstraction and progressed to a new style of Expressionism.