Vladimir Mayakovsky and Frank O’Hara: a Reappraisal

Abstract

The “New York School” refers to a group of poets and painters, mostly of the Abstract Expressionist movement, who congregated in New York in the first two decades following the end of the Second World War. They constitute a coterie that has been characterized as America’s “last avant-garde”. Among its most prominent members was Frank O’Hara (1926–1966). Like other members of the New York School of poets, he was strongly influenced by the French and Russian avant-garde movements of the early twentieth century. He was particularly drawn to the works of Vladimir Mayakovsky, whose persona and poetry are frequently referenced in his own oeuvre. The present study seeks to establish the origins of O’Hara’s interest in the Russian poet, the sources he consulted in familiarizing himself with Mayakovsky’s work, and the trajectory of references to Mayakovsky that documents how his avant-garde aesthetic both accommodates and distances itself from that of his Russian forebear.

Keywords

• frank o’hara
• vladimir mayakovsky
• coterie
• russian avant-garde
• french avantgarde
• new york school
• abstract expressionism.