SAINT LOUIS, MO.- The Saint Louis Art Museum announced today that its featured exhibition, Action/Abstraction: Pollock, de Kooning and American Art, 1940–1976, drew 4,252 visitors last week, including 2,186 patrons on December 26.

Since opening in St. Louis on October 19, 2008, Action/Abstraction has attracted 32,229 visitors, as of December 29, 2008. The featured exhibition closes January 11, 2009 at the Museum. Action/Abstraction proposes a fresh look at the painting and sculpture that transformed the art world in the years following World War II—a period when abstraction emerged as a dominant means of artistic expression. The New Yorker hailed Action/Abstraction as one of the 10 best art shows of 2008.

Action/Abstraction features more than 50 key works that were carefully chosen from major institutions and collections throughout the U.S. and abroad, including major masterpieces by Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning, as well as Helen Frankenthaler, Arshile Gorky, Philip Guston, Hans Hofmann, Jasper Johns, Lee Krasner, Norman Lewis, Barnett Newman, Ad Reinhardt, David Smith, Frank Stella and Clyfford Still.

Action/Abstraction: Pollock, de Kooning and American Art, 1940–1976 was curated at the Saint Louis Art Museum by Charlotte Eyerman, curator of modern and contemporary art. It was conceived and organized by Norman L. Kleeblatt, the Susan & Elihu Rose Chief Curator of The Jewish Museum, New York, with consulting curators Maurice Berger, Senior Fellow at The Vera List Center for Art & Politics, New School University and Senior Research Scholar of the Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture, University of Maryland; Douglas Dreishpoon, Senior Curator of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery; and Charlotte Eyerman. Maurice Berger curated the context rooms in the exhibition.

Action/Abstraction: Pollock, de Kooning and American Art, 1940–1976 has been organized by The Jewish Museum, New York in collaboration with the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo and the Saint Louis Art Museum. Leadership support has been provided by the Weissman Family Foundation, The National Endowment for the Humanities, a federal agency, and the Peter Jay Sharp Foundation. The exhibition is sponsored by the Jerome L. Greene Foundation. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this exhibition do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.