"The Picture Show, presenting works of art from the permanent collection of the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, Lincoln, Nebraska."

[NARRATOR] "A relatively small band of painters working in New York in the 1940's decided that the era of traditional easel painting was over. They created a style known as Abstract Expressionism. Abstract Expressionism is really an umbrella term for a group of individual or personal styles. They are loosely tied together by a kind of family resemblance having to do with a shared attitude towards painting.

One of the styles is Gestural or Action painting. The artist's brush is clearly visible in the application of color and it is tied to personal feelings or emotions. You can see it in this painting by Wilhelm DeKornig.

Robert Motherwell also applies paint vigorously. The Number Eight has a private meaning for the artist.

The City by Hans Hoffman is a canvas laden with paint. In the upper right you can even see where the artist has taken his palette knife through the many layers.

Mark Rohko used color to stretch beyond personal emotions to a profound and universal meaning. Carefully controlled color zones replace the loaded brush.

The same is true of Horizon Light by Barnard Newman. It is contemplative. The world is beginning a new day.

Color field painters such as Helen Frankenthaller are second generation, related to Abstract Expressionists because of the dominance of color. But emotional meaning is absent. It is pure visual experience of the medium.

Large canvases, of course, make the immersion in color more overwhelming. Here we have Ginger Beer by Sam Jakalion and it looks like the title. We're swimming in ginger beer.

In Third Stride Jules Olitsky puts us in a sea of pink foamy stuff. He once remarked that for him the ultimate painting would be a mist of color that would somehow simply hover in the air.

Methodically controlled technique creates the appearance of accident in Burning Stain by Morris Lewis.

And it is technique with color that won't let us forget when we see a colored field painting."