| Table of Contents |
| | Introduction : abstract expressionism : changing methodologies for interpreting meaning | 1 |
| | The 1940s : mythologizing the movement | |
| | Excerpt from letter to his sister Vartoosh / Arshile Gorky | 125 |
| | Excerpt from "Art in New York" / Adolph Gottlieb, Mark Rothko | 125 |
| | Excerpts from "The modern painter's world" / Robert Motherwell | 129 |
| | A questionnaire / Jackson Pollock | 132 |
| | Thesis / Norman Lewis | 133 |
| | Application for a Guggenheim Fellowship / Jackson Pollock | 135 |
| | The ideographic picture / Barnett Newman | 135 |
| | The sublime is now / Barnett Newman | 137 |
| | My painting / Jackson Pollock | 139 |
| | The romantics were prompted / Mark Rothko | 140 |
| | Excerpts from System and dialectics of art / John Graham | 142 |
| | Excerpt from "The realm of art : a new platform; 'globalism' pops into view" / Edward Alden Jewell | 146 |
| | Excerpt from "Whither goes abstract and surrealist art? / Maude Riley | 150 |
| | A problem for critics / Howard Putzel | 152 |
| | Editorial preface / Robert Motherwell, Harold Rosenberg | 153 |
| | The intrasubjectives / Samuel M. Kootz, Harold Rosenberg | 154 |
| | The 1950s : establishing authority | |
| | Excerpts from artists' sessions at Studio 35 | 159 |
| | David Smith makes a sculpture / Elaine de Kooning | 165 |
| | Statement / Clyfford Still | 171 |
| | de Kooning paints a picture / Thomas B. Hess | 172 |
| | Artist's statement / Louise Bourgeois | 180 |
| | The legacy of Jackson Pollock / Allan Kaprow | 181 |
| | In the galleries : Franz Kline / Martica Sawin | 188 |
| | The American action painters / Harold Rosenberg | 189 |
| | "American-type painting" / Clement Greenberg | 198 |
| | Excerpts from "The liberating quality of avant-garde art" / Meyer Schapiro | 215 |
| | International reaction to Alfred H. Barr Jr., "The new American painting" | 220 |
| | Revista / Mercedes Molleda | 220 |
| | La Libre Belgique L. D. H. | 221 |
| | Le Phare Unsigned | 221 |
| | Der Tagesspiegel / Will Grohmann | 222 |
| | The 1960s : consolidating the canon | |
| | The unwanted title : abstract expressionism / P. G. Pavia | 229 |
| | We interview Lee Krasner / Louise Elliott Rago | 236 |
| | The abstract sublime / Robert Rosenblum | 239 |
| | Excerpts from American abstract expressionists and imagists / H. H. Arnason | 245 |
| | The biomorphic '40s / Lawrence Alloway | 250 |
| | Jackson Pollock / Michael Fried | 256 |
| | Concerning the beginnings of the New York School, 1939-1943 : an interview with Peter Busa and Matta, conducted in Minneapolis in December 1966 / Sidney Simon | 263 |
| | Concerning the beginnings of the New York School, 1939-1943 : an interview with Robert Motherwell conducted in New York in January 1967 / Sidney Simon | 276 |
| | The 1970s : emerging contexts and closer readings | |
| | Jungian aspects of Jackson Pollock's imagery / Judith Wolfe | 293 |
| | Residual sign systems in abstract expressionism / Lawrence Alloway | 313 |
| | Robert Motherwell's Elegies to the Spanish Republic / Robert C. Hobbs | 324 |
| | Excerpt from "Abstract expressionism : the politics of apolitical painting," part 3 / David Shapiro, Cecile Shapiro | 338 |
| | Graham, Gorky, de Kooning and the "Ingres revival" in America / Melvin P. Lader | 346 |
| | Symbolic pregnance in Mark Rothko and Clyfford Still / Donald B. Kuspit | 361 |
| | The 1980s : reading new significations | |
| | The new adventures of the avant-garde in America : Greenberg, Pollock, or from Trotskyism to the New Liberalism of the "vital center" / Serge Guilbaut | 383 |
| | James Joyce and the first generation New York School / Evan R. Firestone | 399 |
| | The market for abstract expressionism : the time lag between critical and commercial acceptance / A. Deirdre Robson | 415 |
| | The impact of Nietzsche and Northwest Coast Indian art on Barnett Newman's idea of redemption in the abstract sublime / W. Jackson Rushing | 422 |
| | The rhetoric of abstract expressionism / Ann Gibson | 442 |
| | 1990s : re(de)fining abstract expressionism | |
| | Martha Graham and abstract expressionism / Stephen Polcari | 489 |
| | "Introduction," "Abstract expressionism and Afro-American marginalisation," and "Dissent during the McCarthy period" / David Craven | 510 |
| | Modern man discourse and the New York School / Michael Leja | 527 |
| | In defense of abstract expressionism / T. J. Clark | 535 |
| | Reconsidering the stain : on gender, identity, and New York School painting / Lisa Saltzman | 560 |
| | Of the earth, the damned, and of the recreated : aspects of Clyfford Still's earlier work / David Anfam | 580 |
| | Excerpt from "Water and lipstick : de Kooning in transition" / Richard Shiff | 594 |
| | Barnett Newman's stripe paintings and Kabbalah : a Jewish take / Matthew Baigell | 615 |
| | Arcadian nightmares : the evolution of David Smith and Dorothy Dehner's work at Bolton Landing / Joan M. Marter | 625 |
| | The crisis of the easel picture / Rosalind E. Krauss | 645 |
