Elaine de Kooning
June 27 - July 17, 2009 Back to Exhibitions
Press Release
On exhibit from June 27 through July 17
Elaine de Kooning (1918-1989) continues to steadily emerge from the shadow of her teacher and husband, Willem de Kooning, as an important artist in her own right. Her work is reflective of her dedication to a strong traditional art foundation which allowed her to very successfully pursue her passion for the non-conventional methods and styles most intimately associated with the New York School and Abstract Expressionists.
Beginning at an early age Elaine took on responsibilities which required tremendous leadership, ambition, tenacity and self-confidence. These characteristics would later prove invaluable as Elaine dedicated a significant part of her life to relentlessly promoting the talent of her husband and skillfully positioning herself as an art critic for major art magazines and a well-versed art lecturer. Elaine also situated herself among the most critically acclaimed creative minds of the period, among them Franz Kline, Jackson Pollock, Arshile Gorky, Mark Rothko, Robert Motherwell, John Graham, Merce Cunningham, Tom Hess, Harold Rosenberg, and Clement Greenberg.
Elaine’s formal artistic training began in 1937 with Conrad Marca-Relli at the Leonardo da Vinci Art School in Manhattan. Shortly thereafter, Elaine opted for a more non-conventional curriculum and enrolled at the American Artists School; a progressive institution recognized for promoting the integration of art and social interests in the 1930s. In 1938 Elaine met Willem (Bill) de Kooning, an upcoming artist in the American avant-garde, and began studying under his direction.
Elaine’s artistic sensibility and preoccupation with the plastic qualities of her subject (i.e. surface, texture, and shape) existed previous to her studies with Willem; however, his European influenced perspective offered her a greater understanding of compositional and spatial relationships within her work. By the late 1940s Elaine had progressed from still-lifes to pure abstractions, seeking out the interactive qualities of both the negative and positive spaces and their successful integration.
The 1950s brought full recognition of Elaine’s artistic maturity as she secured several solo exhibitions at notable galleries such as the Stable Gallery, Tibor de Nagy, and the Graham Gallery. Her work during the early 1950s marked the beginning of the artistic vocabulary which would dominate the entirety of her career. The compositions, with their highly charged surfaces and depth of emotion, express an “imminent drama”; “visual analogies to the adrenaline fueled action evoked by their titles (i.e. Angry Man)”. Additionally, her work was included in several important exhibitions including the landmark Ninth Street Show, 1951, Young American Painters at the MoMA, 1956, and Artists of the NY School: 2nd Generation at the Jewish Museum, 1957. She was also included in the Ten Best list in ArtNews in 1956 as well as the Great Expectations I article written by Thomas Hess that same year.
In 1957, following her separation from Willem, Elaine took her first teaching appointment as visiting Professor at the University of New Mexico. As a result the characteristic color and space of the Southwestern landscape was imbued within her work, giving it a renewed sense of color, energy and expansiveness. However, it was the bullfights in Juarez, Mexico, which would provide the backdrop for Elaine’s most successful masterpieces. Fascinated by the masculinity and ferocity of the bull juxtaposed with the lyrical and provocative taunting of the matador, Elaine created over a hundred compositions over the next 10 years based on this subject, otherwise known as her Bull series.
Equally important within her oeuvre, was Elaine’s Bacchus series, based upon the 19th century sculpture in Luxembourg Gardens in Paris. In this series, Elaine gives breadth to the autonomy of form, color, and light, allowing her subject to explode and dissipate with each brushstroke. Demonstrating her extraordinary talent as an action painter, her brushstrokes dance around the figures, sweeping up and down, in and out, continuously shaping the multi-dimensional contours of her subject.
Additionally, Elaine’s Basketball and Baseball series, which she began in the mid-1950s and continued throughout the 1970s, embodied the transient struggle of a single moment, an important subject matter throughout her oeuvre. The energy of these works, as opposed to the energy evident in her pure abstractions, is dependent upon the most crucial element of suspense; the moment of release.
Although Elaine wavered between pure and figurative abstractions throughout her career, her portrait series, which spanned most of her career, was perhaps the most unique. Her mastery as an exceptional portrait artist was confirmed with her commission to paint the portrait of President John F. Kennedy for the Truman Library in 1963, just before his death. Her mastery of this genre is exemplified in her ability to effectively convey a feeling, a gesture, a sense of likeness about the person as opposed to only their physicality. She sought to penetrate and expose the unique gesture of a person, combining the “simultaneous imaginative conception of how they walk, sit, scratches, yawns, and thinks.” As she wavered between precisely rendered portraits and those of extreme abstraction, many times faceless, Elaine’s subjects were always alive with a personality unique to themselves.
In the final stages of her artistic progression, Elaine visited the prehistoric caves of Lascaux in 1983 and was unexpectedly awed by their velocity of energy. The imagery was especially moving, as it related to that of the bull paintings she was so intimately involved with decades earlier. Elaine underwent several phases within her cave series, with the last phase representing the culmination of her entire life’s work. In this phase, Elaine successfully freed color from form and line from permanence, creating works which highlighted the mastery of her lifelong commitment to the infinite expanses of energy and the transience of time.
Elaine’s work is included in the permanent collections of major institutions including the National Portrait Gallery, the Smithsonian Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and others. Throughout her career Elaine’s peer recognition, gallery, museum support were strong, but like other female artists living in the shadow of their famous husbands, only now is her work beginning to receive the market recognition long overdue
Elaine de Kooning
June 27 - July 17, 2009
de KooningOn exhibit from June 27 through July 17
Elaine de Kooning (1918-1989) continues to steadily emerge from the shadow of her teacher and husband, Willem de Kooning, as an important artist in her own right. Her work is reflective of her dedication to a strong traditional art foundation which allowed her to very successfully pursue her passion for the non-conventional methods and styles most intimately associated with the New York School and Abstract Expressionists.
Beginning at an early age Elaine took on responsibilities which required tremendous leadership, ambition, tenacity and self-confidence. These characteristics would later prove invaluable as Elaine dedicated a significant part of her life to relentlessly promoting the talent of her husband and skillfully positioning herself as an art critic for major art magazines and a well-versed art lecturer. Elaine also situated herself among the most critically acclaimed creative minds of the period, among them Franz Kline, Jackson Pollock, Arshile Gorky, Mark Rothko, Robert Motherwell, John Graham, Merce Cunningham, Tom Hess, Harold Rosenberg, and Clement Greenberg.
Elaine’s formal artistic training began in 1937 with Conrad Marca-Relli at the Leonardo da Vinci Art School in Manhattan. Shortly thereafter, Elaine opted for a more non-conventional curriculum and enrolled at the American Artists School; a progressive institution recognized for promoting the integration of art and social interests in the 1930s. In 1938 Elaine met Willem (Bill) de Kooning, an upcoming artist in the American avant-garde, and began studying under his direction.
Elaine’s artistic sensibility and preoccupation with the plastic qualities of her subject (i.e. surface, texture, and shape) existed previous to her studies with Willem; however, his European influenced perspective offered her a greater understanding of compositional and spatial relationships within her work. By the late 1940s Elaine had progressed from still-lifes to pure abstractions, seeking out the interactive qualities of both the negative and positive spaces and their successful integration.
The 1950s brought full recognition of Elaine’s artistic maturity as she secured several solo exhibitions at notable galleries such as the Stable Gallery, Tibor de Nagy, and the Graham Gallery. Her work during the early 1950s marked the beginning of the artistic vocabulary which would dominate the entirety of her career. The compositions, with their highly charged surfaces and depth of emotion, express an “imminent drama”; “visual analogies to the adrenaline fueled action evoked by their titles (i.e. Angry Man)”. Additionally, her work was included in several important exhibitions including the landmark Ninth Street Show, 1951, Young American Painters at the MoMA, 1956, and Artists of the NY School: 2nd Generation at the Jewish Museum, 1957. She was also included in the Ten Best list in ArtNews in 1956 as well as the Great Expectations I article written by Thomas Hess that same year.
In 1957, following her separation from Willem, Elaine took her first teaching appointment as visiting Professor at the University of New Mexico. As a result the characteristic color and space of the Southwestern landscape was imbued within her work, giving it a renewed sense of color, energy and expansiveness. However, it was the bullfights in Juarez, Mexico, which would provide the backdrop for Elaine’s most successful masterpieces. Fascinated by the masculinity and ferocity of the bull juxtaposed with the lyrical and provocative taunting of the matador, Elaine created over a hundred compositions over the next 10 years based on this subject, otherwise known as her Bull series.
Equally important within her oeuvre, was Elaine’s Bacchus series, based upon the 19th century sculpture in Luxembourg Gardens in Paris. In this series, Elaine gives breadth to the autonomy of form, color, and light, allowing her subject to explode and dissipate with each brushstroke. Demonstrating her extraordinary talent as an action painter, her brushstrokes dance around the figures, sweeping up and down, in and out, continuously shaping the multi-dimensional contours of her subject.
Additionally, Elaine’s Basketball and Baseball series, which she began in the mid-1950s and continued throughout the 1970s, embodied the transient struggle of a single moment, an important subject matter throughout her oeuvre. The energy of these works, as opposed to the energy evident in her pure abstractions, is dependent upon the most crucial element of suspense; the moment of release.
Although Elaine wavered between pure and figurative abstractions throughout her career, her portrait series, which spanned most of her career, was perhaps the most unique. Her mastery as an exceptional portrait artist was confirmed with her commission to paint the portrait of President John F. Kennedy for the Truman Library in 1963, just before his death. Her mastery of this genre is exemplified in her ability to effectively convey a feeling, a gesture, a sense of likeness about the person as opposed to only their physicality. She sought to penetrate and expose the unique gesture of a person, combining the “simultaneous imaginative conception of how they walk, sit, scratches, yawns, and thinks.” As she wavered between precisely rendered portraits and those of extreme abstraction, many times faceless, Elaine’s subjects were always alive with a personality unique to themselves.
In the final stages of her artistic progression, Elaine visited the prehistoric caves of Lascaux in 1983 and was unexpectedly awed by their velocity of energy. The imagery was especially moving, as it related to that of the bull paintings she was so intimately involved with decades earlier. Elaine underwent several phases within her cave series, with the last phase representing the culmination of her entire life’s work. In this phase, Elaine successfully freed color from form and line from permanence, creating works which highlighted the mastery of her lifelong commitment to the infinite expanses of energy and the transience of time.
Elaine’s work is included in the permanent collections of major institutions including the National Portrait Gallery, the Smithsonian Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and others. Throughout her career Elaine’s peer recognition, gallery, museum support were strong, but like other female artists living in the shadow of their famous husbands, only now is her work beginning to receive the market recognition long overdue