WILLEM de KOONING (1904 -1997)
Abstract Expressionists did not consider themselves a group movement in art. Many of the artists objected to the label. What they shared was a free expression called gesture or action painting. They used large, heavily loaded brushes and paint was allowed to drip or run. Their techniques created vibrant, energetic paintings with a strong emotional impact.
Willem de Kooning was born in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, on April 24, 1904, the son of Leendert de Kooning and Cornelia Nobel de Kooning. Both parents worked. His father was a wine and beer distributor and his mother ran a bar for local workers. His parents, who were divorced when he was five years old, both married again and had new families. De Kooning did not receive a great deal of parental attention. Raised alternately by his separated parents, he lived with his father first and then with his mother. Willem de Kooning’s artistic aptitude was obviously apparent in his pre-teens when his mother sought an apprenticeship for him.
In 1916, at the age of twelve, de Kooning became an apprentice in a commercial art and decorating firm. The same year, he enrolled in evening classes in Rotterdam at the Academie vor Beeldende Kunsten en Technische Wetenschappen. De Kooning worked as an apprentice in the art firm for four years, at the same time attending night art classes at the Academie where he studied for eight years.
De Kooning pursued his art study by traveling to Brussels, Belgium in 1924, to study at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts. While in Brussels he supported himself with commercial art jobs that included sign painting and designing window displays. He also went to Antwerp in northern Belgium where he took art classes at the van Schelling Design School. The following year he returned to Rotterdam to complete his studies at the Rotterdam Academy and received his degree there in 1925. By the time he left for America he had been well trained in European art schools.
De Kooning was in his early twenties when he entered the United States. Speaking little English at the time, he attempted to make the crossing as a stowaway aboard the British freighter Shelley. However, de Kooning’s presence was apparently detected, for he worked as a wiper in the engine room to earn his passage. As a result, he made friends among the sailors. The vessel was headed for Argentina, but when the ship arrived in America at Newport News, Virginia in August of 1926, de Kooning disembarked. From there, de Kooning worked his way north to Boston on a boat as a stoker. He traveled by train to Rhode Island and then by boat to New York. De Kooning had been told of a Dutch Seaman’s Home in Hoboken, New Jersey, where he would be able to stay. After three days of looking for work, he found a job as a house painter. He remained in Hoboken painting houses for a year, and then moved to Greenwich Village on Manhattan Island, where he rented a studio.
De Kooning began free-lancing as a commercial artist. He produced artwork for clients such as the A.S. Beck department store. Over the next eight-year period, de Kooning continued working at whatever commercial art jobs he could find to earn a living, producing his paintings only on weekends. His free time was spent viewing works of art in galleries and museums and frequenting cafes where artists gathered to meet fellow-painters and discuss art. When de Kooning met Arshile Gorky in 1927, they formed a friendship that lasted for fifteen years.
De Kooning joined the newly formed Artists’ Union in 1934. Arshile Gorky was a member, as were Stuart Davis and Mark Rothko. In 1935 de Kooning met the poet Edwin Demby who became the first collector of his paintings. The great depression had begun and de Kooning joined the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Art Project in 1935 as a painter in the Mural and Easel Divisions. Many artists were involved in the government art program. During the depression, few works of fine art were being sold. Artists who took part in the WPA Federal Art Project were paid to produce murals and other paintings for state and federal public buildings. With government support, de Kooning was able to concentrate solely on painting. After about two years in the Federal art Project de Kooning was dropped from the program because he was not a citizen. It had been the first time he was able to paint full-time. From that point on, he decided to concentrate on his art production, working part-time to earn living expenses.
During the late 1930’s, Gorky and de Kooning shared a studio. Through Gorky, de Kooning became aware of modern European art and particularly Pablo Picasso’s cubism and the surrealism of Joan Miró. De Kooning's interest in cubism is apparent in his paintings from the Thirties on.
For the first time, in 1936, de Kooning was included in a group exhibition, “New Horizons in American Art,” at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The following year, he was again involved with large wall paintings when he designed a ninety-foot section of a mural intended for the Hall of Pharmacy, to be constructed as part of the upcoming New York World’s Fair scheduled to open two years later.
An early work produced in pencil on paper, entitled Self-portrait with Imaginary Brother, 1938, is a rendition of two males standing side by side. The one on the left is dressed in Jacket, pants and shirt. The shorter figure on the right is less formally dressed in open-necked, long-sleeved shirt and knee-length pants. The pencil drawing with faded lines has the effect of a vague, dream-like image.
The male figures rendered in subtle colors and somber tones are the subject matter in de Kooning’s painting, Two Standing Men, 1938. The two male figures face the viewer and look forward with large staring eyes. The faces of the two men are similar and their figures are in nearly identical poses against a simplified, rather flat background. The most distinct figure is fully dressed and stands just off center to the left. The second man, who is bare from the waist up, is on the far right and slightly beyond the more prominent figure. His lower legs fade into the background since the long pants he wears are only clearly delineated to the knee. The less distinct figure occupying the right side of the composition seems almost an echo of the first, as though existing in a different time warp.
In 1938, de Kooning began his first woman theme paintings. That year, he met the woman he would marry, an art student named Elaine Fried. He began making drawings of her in 1939. Portrait of Elaine, c.1940, is a realistically executed pencil on paper line drawing with delicate shading that portrays a beautiful young woman with large eyes. Her face and hands are carefully depicted, capturing a clearly drawn, life-like image. Soft wavy hair frames the delicate features of her face. The folds of her round-necked, long-sleeved robe are lightly shaded. The seated figure drawn by de Kooning with precision illustrates his skill in producing a realistically executed rendition of the model.
At that particular time he was working on a series based on the woman theme in an abstract style. One of the paintings in the series, Seated Woman, 1940, depicts an attractive young woman with red hair. In a slightly abstract style, the proportions of the slender figure are true to life and the features of her face are vaguely indicated but clearly recognizable. Wearing a strapless yellow dress, she casually sits cross-legged on a stool with her dress covering her left foot that is tucked behind the knee of her right leg. Her left arm and hand are clearly shown with her forearm resting across her lap, the fingers curled. The right arm is a simple oval form that lacks clear delineation. Directly behind the woman is a piece of furniture, like the end of a red bed frame. The red color that fills the painting, from her waist level down, matches the shade of her hair. From the waist up to her shoulders, her figure is seen against bright green. The background is basically divided into three areas of color. Above the green, a large area of blue represents a wall of the room.
The commercial artwork de Kooning continued to produce led him into a new area. After the publication of some of his fashion illustrations in a March, 1940 issue of Harper’s Bazaar magazine, he was commissioned to design the sets and costumes for the ballet Les Nuages, to be performed by the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo in New York’s Metropolitan Opera House.
At one point, when Willem de Kooning needed a male model, rather than hiring one to pose for him, he ingeniously created a model by using a pair of long pants dipped in a mixture of glue and water that left the pants stiff when dry. He added a jacket and gloves and an old pair of shoes. To complete the figure, he made a plaster head.
Perhaps de Kooning used that constructed figure while painting Standing Man, c.1942, which depicts a fully clothed male from the knees up. Facing the viewer, the slender, bald-headed man looks slightly off to one side. His face with pale shading is the lightest value tone and coolest color in the otherwise warm over-all color harmony. His orange-toned jacket with one rolled-up sleeve hangs open revealing a lemon yellow T-shirt. His long pants range from brown to a reddish-orange hue. The background, from his shoulders down, is in muted shades of pink. The upper third of the background is in warm beige to soft-brown tones. He stands in front of a shelf or ledge that holds two abstract sculptures, one in the upper left, the other fills the upper right corner. Both ivory-beige sculptures help balance the central figure and the slightly lighter tone of the man’s head.
In 1942, de Kooning took part in his first gallery group exhibition, “American and French Paintings.” Other group shows in New York would follow, including the “Abstract and Surrealist Art in America” exhibition held at the Mortimer Brandt Gallery.
Five years after they met, Willem de Kooning and Elaine Fried were married on December 10, 1943. They lived first in a loft on 22nd Street. Renting a loft was the only way de Kooning could afford to obtain a large studio. They had only a few pieces of used furniture, a second-hand bed and chairs that had been discarded. For cooking, there was a hot plate and their cooking and eating utensils were cafeteria variety. The following year they moved to a flat on Carmine Street in Greenwich Village in lower Manhattan. At that time, de Kooning obtained a separate studio on Fourth Avenue.
By 1947, de Kooning was working on his second series of woman paintings. Although he had been exhibiting his artwork and taking part in group shows, de Kooning did not gain recognition as an important artist until 1948 when he was forty-four years old. His works of art exhibited at that time were primarily large black and white paintings produced with household enamel paints rather than artist’s pigments. No paintings were sold during the exhibition, however his work received increasing attention.
Shortly thereafter, the Museum of Modern Art purchased one of Willem de Kooning’s art works entitled Painting, c.1948. It is a 42 by 56 inch abstract composition in black and white; an arrangement of rounded and straight-edged forms. Primarily of a uniform size, the abstract paintings without subject, theme and lacking a descriptive title suggestive of mood or intended subject, requires one to analyze the work of art on the basic aspects of composition, movement and balance. De Kooning’s black and white series, from 1947 to 1949, includes the paintings Black Untitled and Black Friday. A number of the black and white abstractions were included in his first solo exhibition held in 1948 at the Charles Egan Gallery in New York. During the same year, de Kooning taught during the summer school session at Black Mountain College in North Carolina. Also in 1948, he went to Long Island for the first time to visit Jackson Pollock and his wife Lee Krasner. De Kooning would later spend summer months on Long Island at the home of the art dealer Leo Castelli and his family. The relationship between Willem de Kooning and his wife Elaine was a tumultuous one. They separated in 1948 and would live apart for more than thirty years.
It was in midsummer, 1948, that the artist Arshile Gorky committed suicide. De Kooning was deeply affected by the tragic event of his friend taking his own life. In a letter sent to Art News, and printed in the January, 1949 issue, de Kooning objected to a statement printed by the paper following Arshile Gorky’s memorial show, suggesting that Gorky had been influenced by de Kooning. On the contrary, according to de Kooning, it was he who was influenced by Gorky. He added that he hoped he would never lose Gorky’s powerful influence in his work.
Some paintings produced shortly after Gorky’s death show his influence on de Kooning’s work at that time. The painting Sailcloth, 1949, resembles some of Gorky’s surrealistic paintings. Delicate black lines swirl over a pale background of soft pink, delicate orange and a reddish tone. That same year, both Willem de Kooning and his wife Elaine exhibited their artwork in a group show, “Artists: Man and Wife,” held at the Sidney Janis Gallery in New York.
During 1950, De Kooning first participated in the European group exhibition, the Venice Biennale. That year he began teaching at the Yale University School of Fine Arts in New Haven, Connecticut, 1950-1951. Paintings by de Kooning were receiving important awards. He won the Carnegie Prize in 1951. The same year he also was awarded the Logan Medal and Purchase Prize in the Art Institute of Chicago’s “60th Annual American Exhibition.”
In the early 1950’s, de Kooning began his third series of paintings on the woman theme. As his paintings of women became more abstract, they were no longer attractive. Often they wore a fierce, aggressive expression. The female figure was broken into parts or fragments. Figurative forms and background merged in the paintings so that it became less clear which forms were figures and which were part of the background. The ambiguity was partly the result of de Kooning's method of working. Each composition evolved through many drawings and frequent changes. Drawings were cut apart, rearranged and transferred to the surface of the canvas.
In Woman I, 1950-1952, a six-foot-four-inch by four-foot-ten-inch oil on canvas painting, the exaggerated female figure fills the picture plane. Broad-shouldered and heavy-breasted, she sits facing forward with her knees off to one side. Her upper garment is a silvery-white and her skirt a bright orange. Her right foot rests on a horizontal blue area across the bottom of the composition. A green high-heeled shoe is clearly shown on her right foot. The other foot is lost in abstract slashes of paint as are her lower arms and hands. Past the suggested white chair legs is a green background wall color that is repeated in strokes of green in the upper part of the painting. It is the expression of the woman’s face that arrests attention. Her overly large, dark eyes stare slightly off to the side. The mouth is spread in what is more a toothy grimace than a smile, and the lowered eyebrows give the face a look that has been described as fierce.
De Kooning’s somewhat disturbing portrayals of women were responded to negatively by those who considered then attacks upon women in general. His one-man exhibition, “Paintings on the Theme of the Woman,” was held in New York at the Sidney Janis Gallery in 1953. In one painting from that period, Woman and Bicycle, 1952-1953, parts of the body were exaggerated and sometimes repeated. There are two grinning mouths depicted, one above the other. The woman’s head and chest are clearly shown and her legs appear at the bottom of the canvas below the rectangular yellow shape of her skirt. A dark rounded form in the lower left corner of the composition may represent the wheel of the bicycle. She is dressed for partying and her toothy double smile lends a certain mood to the work of art.
In his many paintings of women, there is a similarity between the figures in a series. Woman IV, 1953, depicts a seated female from the knees up, wearing a strapless yellow top and a red skirt. Her head, with a red hat or headband, upper body, right arm and hand are indicated but not clearly defined. The large-eyed woman smiles broadly as though involved in an animated or amusing conversation.
Another painting in the series, Woman V, 1953, depicts a slightly different version of a woman seated facing forward in basically the same position as in the earlier rendition. The short haired, blond female in a red top with blue trim and a yellow skirt looks directly forward with large dark eyes. Her bare arms are at her sides with her hands folded in her lap. She wears either black stockings or black knee-high boots that show below the hem of her yellow skirt. There is nothing attractive about the females in de Kooning’s Woman series of paintings produced in the 1950’s. His abstract renditions appear an effort to capture a coarser, rapacious image.
Some of de Kooning’s paintings took more than a year to complete. During that time, de Kooning drew hundreds of sketches on the subject, scraped paint off the canvas and repainted many times. Although de Kooning's paintings appear quickly done, actually they were worked and reworked. He mixed his own paint to make a slow drying medium. Starting with commercial paints, he added benzene, sunflower oil, and water. The mixture would stay moist for weeks on the surface of the canvas. De Kooning rotated his canvas while painting, turning it on its side or upside down. Some brushstrokes appear frenzied and accidental. Drops of paint, flung from the brush, made streaks on the canvas. He also covered sections of the wet canvas with newspaper in an effort to keep the paint from drying too fast. At times, the ink from the newspapers came off on the wet paint, leaving a faint impression on the painting of columns of type.
During the year 1954, a retrospective exhibition of de Kooning’s work was held as part of the Venice Biennial, including the painting Excavation, produced in 1950. In Excavation, the over-all pattern of black lines against an off-white background, there are repeated small accents of red, yellow, orange, blue, and lavender. The black lines weave a pattern across the surface creating forms that some viewers have interpreted as eyes, noses, grinning mouths, and parts of arms, legs and torsos. With or without such interpretation, the interplay of black line and areas of color against creamy-white lead the viewer’s eye on a journey through the intricacies of the composition.
In one of the paintings produced that year, Two Women in the Country, 1954, they stand nude side-by-side looking out toward the viewer. Their feet seem to float a foot off the ground with their heads near the top of the canvas. The woman on the left wears high heels while the one on the right, without feet at the ends of her legs, holds something reminiscent of a birdcage with the fingers of her right hand. There is something whimsical about them. Rather than appearing fierce or angry, they wear relaxed, pleased expressions.
In 1955, de Kooning began a series of abstract landscape paintings in which women and landscapes began to merge. He also produced abstract landscapes without the figurative element. De Kooning’s paintings became increasingly complex. Color and line merged and a sweeping arm movement was apparent in his brushstrokes. The broad gesture in painting was given the label “Action Painting” by the art critic, Harold Rosenberg.
One of the paintings De Kooning produced at that time, Interchange, 1955, is a non-objective painting with areas of red, white, yellow and several shades of blue in an arrangement of straight-edged and rounded forms. Produced in the time period of his Women series, the off-white forms are suggestive of a seated woman wearing a white dress. A square white form as the upper body, a triangular shape just below as the lap and an angle downward for the skirt from the knees down. In the upper right side, two thin parallel black lines angled downward, suggests a tubular left upper arm from shoulder to elbow. Whether interpreted as an abstract figurative theme, or as a purely non-objective painting, the composition is harmonious. During the years de Kooning and his wife, Elaine, were separated, he maintained alliances with various women. One was the commercial artist Joan Ward by whom he had his only child, Lisa, born in 1956. His daughter would continue to be a part of his life.
De Kooning was eight years older than the artist Jackson Pollock. Although their techniques differed, both artists were considered forerunners of the Abstract Expressionists movement. Pollock’s unique paintings have a shallow depth and all-over pattern. They were part of the group of artists referred to as the New York School. In 1956, when Pollock died in a car accident at age forty-four, there was a difference of opinion over which artist, Pollock of de Kooning, should be considered the artist responsible for the new movement in abstract art. At Pollock’s funeral, de Kooning is quoted as giving credit to Pollock for what he termed, breaking the ice, in the development of Abstract Expressionism.
When de Kooning’s friend, the artist Franze Kline, switched from creating art works on the black and white theme to producing his works of art in color, de Kooning again created black and white paintings similar to those he had produced a decade earlier. It was almost as though de Kooning decided to reclaim his use of the limited black and white pallet formerly utilized in his earlier black and white series of paintings. At which time, 1947 to 1949, de Kooning had produced a number of paintings on the black and white theme that included Black Untitled and Black Friday.
The countryside in the East Hampton area on Long Island, New York apparently appealed to de Kooning. Some of his friends lived in that area. Also, the land surrounded by water may have reminded him of his native Holland. De Kooning, in 1960, purchased a home at Springs near East Hampton. He designed a large studio to be built on his property at Springs, the construction of which was started in 1961.
The large painting, A Tree in Naples, 1960, was composed predominately in blue tones. It is a boldly executed composition, reduced basically to a few colors. Large blue areas suggest the simplified end of a frame building with a pitched roof and two dark rectangular shapes as openings. The dark reddish shape across the top of the painting could suggest vivid fall foliage. The Abstract Expressionist painting with large bold strokes of color is somehow restful. With the dominant use of blue the artist created the beauty of a scene observed by moonlight on a quiet night.
The landscape painting, Door to the River, 1960, was also executed with broad strokes of color. The doorway is clearly represented by a rectangular, dark area left of center. Loose brushstrokes of vivid yellow fills the upper roughly triangular central area between the door and the peak of the roof. Softer shades of yellow sweep down both sides next to the dark rectangle. On the far right side large vertical strokes in a peachy-gray tone create the impression of a low adjoining shed or fence.
De Kooning took part in the “American Abstract Expressionists and Imagists” exhibition held at the Guggenheim Museum in New York in 1961. Although generally identified as an Abstract Expressionist, de Kooning considered himself an independent artist, not allied with a particular art movement. Splashes, drips, and sweeping brushstrokes are typical of Abstract Expressionism. Although his painting style was similar to that of the artists who participated in the Abstract Expressionism movement, de Kooning did not consider himself a part of any group.
In 1962, Willem de Kooning became a citizen of the United States. His work was being shown in European exhibitions including the “International Exhibition” held at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. He also participated in “American Vanguard,” an art exhibition organized by the United States Information Agency for viewing in various European cities. Through exhibitions of his artwork in Europe, de Kooning was becoming known internationally as an important artist.
When he moved in 1963 to East Hampton, New York, it became his permanent home. The move was partly to escape from New York City and the recognition wherever he went because of his success as an artist. He preferred the country, where he could go where he liked without being disturbed. The large studio he designed would not be completed until the late Sixties. While his studio was under construction, de Kooning worked in a small barn-garage. When he set up work in his studio space, he mixed his colors in cups and cereal bowls set on the flat surface of a table. Brushes were arranged in a long row that would give him easy access to and selection from his large collection of brushes, many of which, were big house painters brushes.
De Kooning began his fifth series of paintings on the woman theme in 1963. The title, Clam Diggers, suggests a beach and sea setting. It is an abstract painting with the figures indicated in pale pink flesh tones against a background of sand-colored beige. Two nude women, side-by-side facing toward the viewer, fill the picture plane. They are pleasantly attractive. Both have large eyes, small mouths, and flowing blond hair. Their arms are raised and the face of one is partly obscured by her hand. Without a change in color tone, there is an underwater appearance to their bodies from the waist down since the legs have wavy outlines. The artist has conveyed a feeling of the young women moving through water, as though they were wading.
The first American retrospective exhibition of de Kooning work, showing the development of the artist’s style over a period of many years, took place in 1965 at the Museum of Art, Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. The same year, on the West Coast, his paintings were included in the exhibition “New York School: The First Generation, Paintings of the 1940’s and 1950’s,” displayed at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in California.
Abstract works of art, with paint applied in broad strokes, are typical of the paintings produced by the Abstract Expressionists. In both his figurative and his abstract landscape paintings, de Kooning used bold brushstrokes. The abstract figure in Woman with a Hat, 1966, is easily discernable though seemingly lacking arms. Pink and flesh-tone colors suggest the figure and the broad-brimmed hat with an economy of broad brushstrokes. Background green color on the right side of the figure, and yellow on the left side, complete the color scheme.
De Kooning was increasingly involved in international as well as national exhibitions. In 1968 he traveled to France where his first European one-man show was held in Paris. Also, for the first time in over forty years, he returned to Holland for the traveling retrospective exhibition of his works in Europe at the Tate Gallery in London and Stedelijik Museum in Amsterdam.
A trip to Japan in 1969 influenced de Kooning’s art production. Impressed by Japanese printmaking, he began working in a calligraphic style, producing black-and-white lithographic prints. De Kooning also traveled to Rome the same year where the statues he viewed inspired him to work in the medium of sculpture. He first produced small sculptural pieces in clay, including Reclining Figure, 1969, and Standing Figure, 1969. When the British sculptor, Henry Moor, saw them he encouraged de Kooning to increase the scale of his sculptures. By 1971, de Kooning was creating life-size figures with a rough surface texture, cast in bronze. In the early 1970’s his sculptures included Clamdigger, 1972, and Cross-Legged Figure, 1972.
The same year, he produced Seated Woman on a Bench, 1972. The abstract sculpture cast in bronze is located in the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington D.C. Without the descriptive title, it could be difficult to identify the subject of the abstract bronze sculpture. The female figure depicted has her raised right arm, bent at the elbow, across the top of the sculpture with the oversized hand by her left shoulder. The other long arm, with elbow against her side, reaches outward with her large left hand. The dark-toned metal sculpture is mounted on a square cement base. De Kooning produced a large number of sculptures during the Seventies, including Hostess, 1973, and Large Torso, 1974.
A traveling exhibition of Willem de Kooning’s artworks was organized by the Walker art Center in 1974, during which the Australian National Gallery purchased the painting Woman V for the price of $850,000. That sale of de Kooning’s painting set a new record as the highest amount paid for a work of art by a living American artist.
During the decade of the 1970’s, Willem de Kooning continued to paint in his freely expressive style with thick, viscous paint. In 1975 he began a highly productive period in which he concentrated on large abstract landscapes with strong, slashing strokes. The broad gesture is seen as long brushstrokes of thick, freely applied paint. One painting from that period, Hallelujah, contains only one recognizable form, a small sailboat indicated by a few strokes of dark-blue paint against off-white. There is the suggestion of a landscape scene with the boat and its reflection centered in the composition against a background where off-white blends with delicate peach and yellow tones. Whether labeled an abstract landscape or non-objective, the colors are delicate. In the upper half, subtle blues could represent the sky with off-white clouds. Yellow-green areas suggest the foliage of early spring growth. The boat seems surrounded by a broken surface that reflects the golden glow of a sunset with pale orange, yellow and soft lavender as reflected light dancing over the surface of a silvered sea.
The marriage of Elaine and Willem de Kooning was a tumultuous one. They separated in 1948 and lived apart for more than thirty years, reuniting in 1979. She had a house in East Hampton close to his and they maintained a close relationship as they grew older together. For the next ten years she helped take care of him and encouraged him to focus his energies on his art production.
Two paintings produced by de Kooning in 1980 that are rich in overall color, include Untitled V, a 70 by 80 inches non-objective with broad strokes of blue plus several small touches of accent colors including green, orange, yellow and lavender. The painting Untitled VIII, 54 by 60 inches, is similar in treatment with green the dominant color in broad brushstrokes plus repeated small areas of red and one touch of yellow in the lower left corner. Both abstracts are rich in color applied with bold brushstrokes of thick paint and no recognizable theme.
In the early 1980’s, paintings by de Kooning took on a light and lyrical aspect with rhythmic ribbons of flat color. They float through the composition, twist and turn in waves against a whitish background. One such painting is entitled Morning: The Springs, 1983. A limited color scheme was used with yellow as the dominant hue appearing in a large shape in the lower center. Other colors move in fluid, brushstrokes against a white background. Some pale, reddish-pink forms float in the upper right. A few narrow ribbons of blue and lavender course through the composition. A particularly dominant blue ribbon sweeps in from the upper left to near center where it drops like a stream of falling blue water.
The painting Two Trees, 1985, is interesting in that the title suggests a landscape theme. Two shapes in green against white, in the upper half of the composition, correspond with the title of the painting. They are balanced by three large areas of blue in the lower half that are reminiscent of the rushing water of a river cascading over rocks next to a bank white with snow. In the upper right corner of the abstract, a small horizontal band of pink suggests a sunset sky. It is seen past repeated vertical strokes in soft gray suggestive of bare tree trunks during the dormant season.
A change took place in color application and style in de Kooning’s large paintings produced in the mid-nineteen-eighties generally referred to as “Willem de Kooning’s Late Work.” They are similar in size and treatment, approximately seventy-by-eighty inches with twisting ribbons of color conveying a light and airy mood. The graceful, undulating forms and sweeping bands of color are filled with rhythmic movement.
De Kooning produced a series of paintings, beautiful in their simplicity that he labeled Untitled, often followed by a Roman numeral. In Untitled XXI, produced in 1985, an oil on canvas painting 70 by 80 inches in size, the bright primary colors blue, red, and yellow move in a curvilinear treatment across a white background. The painting, Untitled III, 1986, is the same large size with flowing lines of color including green, red, blue and yellow against white. The graceful movement has the rhythm of music and the flow of a stream or river. The numerous large abstract expressionist paintings by de Kooning constitute a major aspect of his artistic production during the last period of his life.
De Kooning’s health began to decline before his wife, Elaine de Kooning, died of lung cancer at age sixty-eight in 1989. De Kooning, was diagnosed in 1990 as suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and at the same time was losing his eyesight. No longer able to paint his art production ceases at that point in his life. His had been a long and productive career. Prices for works of art by de Kooning reached astronomical heights in the 1980’s with paintings produced in that decade priced in the millions. In his honor, in 1996 the Rotterdam Academy of Fine Arts and Letters changed its name to the Willem de Kooning Academy. The following year, Willem de Kooning died on March 19, 1997 at age ninety-two in his home in East Hampton, located on Long Island in New York.
Christies in New York City sold Willem de Kooning’s painting Untitled, 1987, on May 15, 2013 for the amazing figure of four million, six hundred and three thousand, seven hundred and fifty dollars. The painting, Untitled, an oil on canvas depiction, is typical in size to the many paintings from that period. The large painting with wide red flowing strokes of paint against a white background, some areas filled with bright yellow, is reminiscent of a huge flower blossom.