(1937 - ) Vladimir Klionov grew up during the 1950s and was inspired by the artistic culture of the time. In the Post-War period the lens of international modernism was focused on developments in New York City. The Second World War had brought many leading creatives to the city in exile from Europe, leading to a noteworthy pooling of talent and ideas. Important Europeans that came to New York and provided inspiration for American artists included Piet Mondrian, Josef Albers and Hans Hoffmann, who between them set the basis of much of the United States’ explosive cultural growth in the subsequent decades. Influential artists of the Abstract Expressionist generation included Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, Frank Kline, Barnett Newman, Clyfford Still and Adolph Gottlieb. It was a male-dominated environment, though necessary revisionism of this period has highlighted the contributions of female artists such as Lee Krasner, Joan Mitchell, and Louise Bourgeois, amongst others.*