Mary Abbott, who was at the heart of the Abstract Expressionist movement in New York in the 1940s and ’50s but, like other women painting in that genre, received far less recognition than her male counterparts, died on Aug. 23 in Southampton, N.Y. She was 98 .

Thomas McCormick of the McCormick Gallery in Chicago, which represented her, announced the death.

Ms. Abbott painted bold, colorful works, often inspired by nature or music, and traveled in the same circle s as Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning and other artists who were redefining painting in the years after World War II. De Kooning in particular, 17 years her senior, became a friend, lover and protector, including from some of the other male artists.

“I didn’t like Pollock much,” Ms. Abbott related in an interview for the biography “de Kooning: An American Master,” by Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan (2004). “When he was sober he didn’t talk, and when he was drunk Bill had to keep pulling him off of me.”

That vivid description conveys what women trying to make a name for themselves in that world were facing.