Reviews for Willem De Kooning

The average rating for Willem De Kooning based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2020-03-10 00:00:00 Anne Eldridge One of the qualities of this monograph on De Kooning is the reconstruction of his first period before the famous Women series, when the painter still played with the figures without indulging in realism. Abstract figures were destined to emerge by background, were unquieting the surface where the human anatomy is still present but as a ghostly figuration. After many explorations at the boundaries, De Kooning found his totem in a quirky, virulent exposition of the female disorder...In June 1950, De Kooning finished a painting titled Excavation, really beautiful but also light and moderate despite its interior movements. Woman I is an image completely different. It seems De Kooning was fascinated by this "ancient siren", as Harry F. Gaugh wrote, that was appearing to him in different versions almost shaping an unfinished work. Siren or monster? In any case, the influence of Picasso for my regard is evident. Not only for some resemblance but for the gesture and taste of freedom. "Oddly enough", wrote Gaugh, "they are not erotic paintings, yet not because their subjects suffer any inhibitions". These pictures are not "erotic", it's true. But they don't belong quietly near some archetype or any ritual image of woman, like the critic supposed here. I guess that is a misunderstanding cultivated for many years by critics. Also if some influence of ancient figures of Venus may be suggested here, the inspiration probably exploded by the deep of predatorial life of the consumers in the late Fifties (Gaugh remember this when he write about De Kooning's friendship with Meyer Schapiro). De Kooning attacked the American way of life and he transformed that in a masquerade like his Belgian colleague James Ensor - only style and era are different. Jackson Pollock was fascinated by Freud, but De Kooning was very direct like a boxer on a ring. Brushstrokes like form of revenge?

Review # 2 was written on 2019-02-12 00:00:00 Mark Morehouse Rauschenberg is alright, but this is one of the best books I've seen on any artist. So many plates, so little time.