Since the beginning of the ’80s, a growing number of exhibitions have focused on American painting during the three decades preceding 1960. Two of these exhibitions—Barbara Rose’s opportunistic “Krasner/Pollock, A Working Relationship” (1981) and Paul Schimmel’s well thought out “Action/Precision: The New Direction in New York, 1955–60” (1984)—reexamined earlier interpretations and their resulting codifications and attitudes. In assembling “Abstract Expressionism: The Critical Developments” and the accompanying catalogue, curator Michael Auping had a wonderful opportunity to provide an alternative