Pattern and Decoration Movement

An American art movement that emerged in the 1970s in reaction to Minimalism and Conceptualism. Championed by the New York gallery owner Holly Solomon and inspired by 1960s liberation politics, particularly feminism, as well as by African, Middle Eastern, and Asian art, these artists produced large paintings, fabric pieces, and sculptures emphasizing pattern and all-over decoration—traditionally secondary aspects of artmaking and virtually absent from the works being produced at the time.