{"id":7130,"date":"2025-05-19T21:04:23","date_gmt":"2025-05-19T21:04:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2025\/05\/19\/curator-cecilia-alemani-on-willem-de-kooning-endless-painting\/"},"modified":"2025-05-19T21:04:28","modified_gmt":"2025-05-19T21:04:28","slug":"curator-cecilia-alemani-on-willem-de-kooning-endless-painting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2025\/05\/19\/curator-cecilia-alemani-on-willem-de-kooning-endless-painting\/","title":{"rendered":"Curator Cecilia Alemani On \u201cWillem de Kooning: Endless Painting\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
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An installation view of the exhibition \u201cWillem de Kooning: Endless Painting\u201d at Gagosian. Photograph by Maris Hutchinson. Artwork \u00a9 2025 The Willem de Kooning Foundation\/ Artists Rights society (ARS, New York<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Alongside Jackson Pollock<\/a>, Willem de Kooning<\/a> has long been considered one of the twin pillars of abstract expressionism. But his most cited works, his Woman series of six canvases, are figurative, not abstract, though they\u2019re plenty expressionist. If it\u2019s true abstraction you\u2019re after, look no further than his ribbon paintings of the 1980s. Cool colors and an emphasis on negative space reflect sobriety and comfortable rural living in the Hamptons. But even here, if you look close enough, you\u2019ll find figurative elements.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt highlights the cyclical nature of his practice hovering between abstraction and figuration, which he never abandoned,\u201d curator Cecilia Alemani<\/a> tells Observer about her show, \u201cWillem de Kooning: Endless Painting\u201d at Gagosian\u2019s Chelsea gallery. \u201cI tried to create a dialog starting from the forties to the eighties.\u201d<\/p>\n

De Kooning constantly references his earlier works, which he kept next to his easel while he painted. If he didn\u2019t have the original on hand, he made photocopies of images. A long-time alcoholic, it wasn\u2019t his razor-sharp memory that repeated a graceful arc or contour on the tip of his brush. And it wasn\u2019t muscle memory either. He used vellum, traced and cut against earlier paintings, importing lines and shapes to later works.<\/p>\n

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Willem de Kooning, Woman as Landscape<\/em>, 1954\u201355; Oil and charcoal on canvas. Maris Hutchinson (Photographer)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cI like the idea of searching for the figures, especially in the 1980s paintings. They\u2019re considered pure abstraction, but as soon as you start reading them through this system of forms, you actually recognize an elbow, a foot, a torso,\u201d Alemani says of the show, which includes two from the Woman<\/i> series. \u201cI was looking for thematic memory in works that are seemingly abstract.\u201d<\/p>\n

The wavy arms of Untitled XIV<\/i> from 1986 echo the outspread limbs of Standing Figure<\/i>, a massive bronze sculpture. These, along with the flesh-colored dysmorphic shapes of Montauk II<\/i> from 1969, or the hint of a facial profile in \u2026Whose Name Was Writ in Water<\/i>, painted six years later, illustrate Alemani\u2019s theory.<\/p>\n

The child of a broken home in Rotterdam, de Kooning left school in 1916 to apprentice in a commercial artist firm, attending night classes at the Academie van Beeldende Kunsten en Technische Wetenschappen (later renamed in his honor). He came to the U.S. as a stowaway, hoping to become a magazine illustrator. Within a year, he landed in Manhattan, supporting his art habit with carpentry and side gigs doing illustrations. As he became a fixture in the art scene, he counted Arshile Gorky as a mentor.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith Gorky you can certainly see the influence in the use of the line,\u201d says Alemani. \u201cThe painting in the show called \u2018Bill-Lee\u2019s Delight\u2019 from 1946 (oil on paper mounted on masonite), you see Gorky, you see Picasso, some surrealism. That\u2019s a very special painting that talks about the influence Gorky had.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beyond the Woman<\/i> series, the distaff half figures prominently in de Kooning\u2019s practice. Who is pictured is anyone\u2019s guess since he insisted they\u2019re not portraits of people he knew. \u201cThey\u2019re actually self-portraits of him, not Elaine (his wife), or other partners he had,\u201d notes Alemani. \u201cI think he was looking at the image of women he saw in the American consumerist society around billboards and magazines, especially in the post-war period. I think that was a bigger influence.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Willem de Kooning, Montauk II,<\/em> 1969; Oil on paper mounted on canvas. Maris Hutchinson (photographer)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Elaine de Kooning was also a painter<\/a>. Together, they fought the bottle and each other amid the besotted jealousy of an open marriage. She left him in 1957 after 14 years, but came back into his life in 1976. \u201cThey weren\u2019t a couple anymore, but she really helped him,\u201d says Alemani. \u201cI think that\u2019s why he made many more paintings than in previous decades.\u201d<\/p>\n

His output is prolific, but his sculptures are few. While visiting an artist friend in Rome who had access to a foundry, de Kooning made some figures, two of which are in the show\u2014Clamdigger<\/i>, a human-sized piece from 1972\u2014and Standing Figure<\/i>, a large-scale bronze made over 15 years beginning in 1969.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen he painted, he would scrape here, scratch there, erase the composition every single day,\u201d Alemani says of de Kooning\u2019s tortured process. \u201cBut with clay, you can go back and completely remodel it the following day. I think he enjoyed the materiality of sculpture. \u2018Standing Figure\u2019 is impressive indoors because it\u2019s meant for outdoors, and it\u2019s the first time in thirty years it has been brought in. I think it does something really special to the paintings. There is something sensual and physical about having that giant object in the space.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of de Kooning\u2019s paintings have sold for record prices. In 2006, David Geffen sold Woman III<\/i> for $137.5 million. He later sold Interchange<\/i> for $300 million, the highest price paid for a painting until Leonardo da Vinci\u2019s Salvator Mundi<\/i><\/a> fetched $450 million at auction in 2017<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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The Gagosian exhibition traces de Kooning\u2019s evolving visual language from the 1940s through the 1980s, including rarely seen sculptures and late paintings. Photograph by Maris Hutchinson. Artwork \u00a9 2025 The Willem de Kooning Foundation\/ Artists Rights society (ARS, New York<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Gagosian show includes six paintings made in the 1980s, the latest from 1986. Before his death 11 years later, it was revealed that he suffered from Alzheimer\u2019s, starting in the 1980s.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe lived such a long life,\u201d Alemani says of the artist, who died at age 92. \u201cHe went through so many different periods and eras<\/a>. I sometimes think the discussions about him get stuck on the Woman series. But his compositions are so sophisticated and powerful, the way he scraped the canvas each night and the layering, the technical aspects and the general composition and the mastery of color and light\u2026 It\u2019s said that he enjoyed being in the studio, alone with his paintings.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/b>Willem de Kooning: Endless Painting<\/b><\/a>\u201d is showing through June 14, 2025, at Gagosian\u2019s 555 West 24th Street gallery.<\/b><\/p>\n

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