<P> Technically , an important predecessor is surrealism , with its emphasis on spontaneous , automatic , or subconscious creation . Jackson Pollock 's dripping paint onto a canvas laid on the floor is a technique that has its roots in the work of André Masson , Max Ernst , and David Alfaro Siqueiros . The newer research tends to put the exile - surrealist Wolfgang Paalen in the position of the artist and theoretician who fostered the theory of the viewer - dependent possibility space through his paintings and his magazine DYN . Paalen considered ideas of quantum mechanics , as well as idiosyncratic interpretations of the totemic vision and the spatial structure of native - Indian painting from British Columbia and prepared the ground for the new spatial vision of the young American abstracts . His long essay Totem Art ( 1943 ) had considerable influence on such artists as Martha Graham , Isamu Noguchi , Jackson Pollock , Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman . Around 1944 Barnett Newman tried to explain America 's newest art movement and included a list of `` the men in the new movement . '' Paalen is mentioned twice ; other artists mentioned are Gottlieb , Rothko , Pollock , Hofmann , Baziotes , Gorky and others . Motherwell is mentioned with a question mark . Another important early manifestation of what came to be abstract expressionism is the work of American Northwest artist Mark Tobey , especially his `` white writing '' canvases , which , though generally not large in scale , anticipate the `` all - over '' look of Pollock 's drip paintings . </P>
who started the drip technique in art during abstract expressionism in the modern period
André Masson Max Ernst David Alfaro Siqueiros