ABSTRACT
Several of the innovating artists were metamorphosed from avant-garde pariahs into culture heroes, the latest masters, and a large number of artists at home and abroad submitted to their influence. This led to the growing belief that gesture painting had or was rapidly becoming an established style, and there ensued a controversy over whether it continued to be a viable tendency or had become an academic dead end. The ranks of resident New York artists had grown so that it was obvious large numbers could only be academic followers who fabricated pictures in someone else’s manner, with minor deviations to be sure, or who mixed the styles of others, contriving a measure of “originality.” Beginning in 1958, the issue of whether gesture painting had become academic was openly debated within the New York School. Sidney Gordin insisted that revolution had become fashionable, that there was an academy of revolution.
