Willem de Kooning is a Dutch-American painter, sculptor and Draftsman better known for the abstract expressionist movement. De Kooning was born in the Netherlands, Rotterdam on April 24, 1904, and died in 1997 at East Hampton, New York. In 1926, the artist immigrated to the US, and by 1962 he had obtained his American citizenship. He married a fellow painter Elaine Freid in 1943. Some of the most notable works of art by Willem de Kooning are Seated Woman, Pink Angels, Attic, Excavation, Woman I, and Untitled VII (Exhibit-E.com).
Image One: Willem de Kooning in his studio at Long Island
Source, Exhibit-E.com
Seated Woman
Seated Woman is de Kooning’s first notable painting depicting women. The work of art evolved and elicited curiosity out of an earlier picture, the Portrait of a Woman commissioned in 1940. In the Seated Woman painting, de Kooning seemed to have held on the fundamentals of the commissioned Portrait of a Woman and used it to come up with new pictures (Philadelphia Museum of Art). The earlier works of art were shaped by present images depicting women found in magazines and also by his wife, Elaine, whom at one point acted as a model during pating when the picture’s subject was unavailable. Such factors pushed de Kooning to consider the possibilities of utilizing pictures in representing women in general, compared to using a specific person. Similarly, Arshile Gorky also influenced the painting. In particular, The Artist and his Mother
who took Gorky close to fifteen years to develop.
Image Two: Seated Woman
Source, the Art Story
Pink Angels
This artwork marked an critical phase the artist's transformation from figuration to abstraction towards the late 1940's. The pink fleshy bimorphs shown in his earlier works evoke the eyes together with other anatomical forms. These features are a constant reminder of the violence witnessed during the World War II. Besides, the yellow backgrounds make it utterly impossible to distinguish figurative elements pictures (Philadelphia Museum of Art). De Kooning’s thorough ground and figure blurring played a vital role the shift towards black and white painting as witnessed in de Kooning’s later paintings.
Image Three: Pink Angels
Source, the Art Story
Attic
Developed in 1949, during this period de Kooning moved towards a series of white and black abstractions. This work of art the best-known example among the white and black set of abstractions. The attic is also the most exhibited black and white painting.
Additionally, Attic exhibits
angular trusting features that collide with other curvilinear aspects of the painting to contribute moving and high-pitched pictures (Philadelphia Museum of Art). Consequently, white shapes form a dense web of black and white lines making it challenging to isolate the relationship between space and form. However, there is a possibility of determining the figural basis of the scene.
Image Four: Attic
Source, the Art Story
The biomorphic shapes and symbols are stretched on the canvas allude the forms and curves of the human anatomy. The palette of white and black together with yellow and red touches was in part determined by the availability of affordable enamel paint (De Kooning 5). Though de Kooning was restricted in the use of color, he exhibits virtuosity through his expressive paint handling sensuous, and line. Moreover, the gestural dynamic and brushwork over the composition exemplify the new visual language advanced by abstract and expressionist artists pictures (Philadelphia Museum of Art). De Kooning often made changes on his works of art. Thus, Attic was displayed during two separate phases of completion. The painter accelerated the time taken by the paint to dry by blotting newspaper sheets on top of the newspaper as evidenced by the surface of the painting. Immediately after presenting Attic, he brought into effect again full color to his works of art.
Excavation
The Excavation is an artwork that signified the abstract phase of the 1940s as advanced by de Kooning. Excavation like Attic was mainly concerned with the link between a figure and the ground, and how the pointed edges of biomorphic forms collide forcefully in the space and composition pictures (Philadelphia Museum of Art). However, it departs from the fundamentals of Attic by employing a wide range of primary colors as the highlights. Excavation is a classic illustration of action painting by de Kooning before his return to figure and color with increased enthusiasm as shown in the Women series.
Image Five: Excavation
Source, the Art Story
Woman I
Developed between 1950 and 1952, Woman I is perhaps the most celebrated painting by de Kooning. The artist worked for two years on the project revising it aggressively and continuously. According to his dealer, Woman I had holes punched on its canvas due to violence exerted by de Kooning’s brush strokes pictures (Philadelphia Museum of Art). He also used newspaper cutting on the surface of the canvas to enable him to work on it for a long time. Further evidenced by the imprints left behind when he peeled off the newspaper. De Kooning never saw his images as collages, but he utilized springboard technique which involved pasting images from magazines to show smiles in the position of the mouth. However, this technique did not survive to the finished product. Using popular media acted as an inspiration to some extent and also a Pop art precursor, which was a revolt against expressionism abstraction.
Image Six: Woman I
Source, the Art Story
Woman I is celebrated not only because of the process it undergoes but also because it highlights two critical themes. First, the painting depicts a female figure who is overly aggressive, threatening and erotic unlike many pictures of the western paintings. The female is shown in Woman I has fierce eyes, frightening teeth, and a complete departure from the submissive housewife as perceived during the cold-war. De Kooning created this image to respond to the idealized woman in the history of art.
Second, Woman, I play an essential role in de Kooning's move towards exploring the link between ground and figure. The artist enables the figure’s form to blend with the abstracted background through brushstrokes which bring together figure and background (Eyerman 19). The painting also utilizes the same pigments, for instance, white and fleshy pink in both the torso and the surrounding space. Therefore, dissolving the woman in the background.
Women Singing
Created in 1967, Women Singing is a typical work of art depicting de Kooning’s return to figure, experimented with a new sequence of paintings showing women. This transformation occurred shortly after de Kooning moved Long Island. Compared to the earlier Women series, this painting was overly abstract and less ferocious (De Kooning 5). However, it was eroticized owing to the blond hair which borders in the caricature and red lips. De Kooning was inspired to create this work of art through watching the television and paying keen attention to the latest trends in fashion and the 1960s pop idols.
Image Seven: Women Singing
Source, the Art History
Untitled VII
Towards the year 1985, de Kooling significantly simplified his colors and brush strokes. Compared to the previous projects, which characterized working surfaces, Untitled VII depicts a sparse magnitude of brushstrokes as highlighted by the vast amount of white surface encircling the image (Eyerman 20). The artist also departs from the rich impasto to the flat and sanded surfaces as witnessed in his previous works of art during the 1940s.
Image Eight: Untitled VII
Source, the Art History
Works Cited
The Art Story. Modern Art Insight. Painting. 2018. Google Images, www.google.com/search?newwindow=1&tbm=isch&q=Willem%20de%20Kooning%20Seated%20Woman%20(1940) . Accessed 3 Nov. 2018.
Exhibit-E.com. "Biography - The Artist." Willem De Kooning Foundation, www.dekooning.org/the-artist/biography . Accessed 3 Nov. 2018.
Philadelphia Museum of Art. "Collections Object : Seated Woman." Philadelphia Museum of Art, www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/69312.html . Accessed 3 Nov. 2018.
De Kooning, Willem. "What abstract art means to me." Museum of Modern Art Bulletin 18.3 (1951): 4-8.
Eyerman, Ron. "Toward a meaningful sociology of the arts." Myth, Meaning and Performance. Routledge, 2015. 19-40.
