The big names are all here at the MoMA's exhibit, and even if you feel like you've seen most these pieces before, their impact both individually and, especially, all hung together as a group is undeniable. We lingered in the Mark Rothko room (especially before No. 5/No. 22, at top), for a good long time, soaking in the almost glowing colors of the eight big works presented here. Jackson Pollack's massive Number 1A, above, which you can't help but have seen a million times before in reproduction, is a completely different animal altogether viewed "live", dynamic and engaging and enveloping. And the gathering of Barnett Newmans, featuring seven of his trademark "zippered" abstract expressionist paintings (including the huge Vic Heroicus Sublimis shown below, of which the artist said is "intended to be seen from a short distance"), was another high point of our journey. 

There were some surprises here as well. Who knew how much we loved Robert Motherwell, for instance? Not us… until we were treated to four of his works scattered throughout the MoMA's Abstract Expressionist New York exhibition, including Pancho Villa, Dead and Alive, above. Other high points: Alfred Leslie's The Second Two-Panel Horizontal, below, and the wonderfully green and graphic Bradley Walker Tomlin's Number 9: In Praise of Gertrude Stein, even further below. But we're not being completely fair here, because a true highlight reel of Abstract Expressionist New York would inevitably include most everything. If this period, and this style, and these artists speak to you at all, then this exhibition is an absolute must.