2023-04-30 14:59:00
10 minutes to read
Willem de Kooning is recognized as one of the greatest artists of the 20th century and is a reference of abstract expressionism. His abstract canvases won the American art scene in the second half of the 20th century, and it was a production that was much discussed by critics, and is still desired by private collectors.
Kooning was born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, in 1904. At the age of 12, he began an internship as an apprentice decorator and studied drawing at the Academy of Fine Arts and Industrial Techniques in his hometown, where he studied the history and theory of European and non-European art. European, perspective, proportion, model drawing and other artistic techniques.
At the age of 22, Kooning emigrated illegally to the United States, where he lived most of his life in New York. He began his career as a commercial artist and worked in different ways to support himself, such as delivery boy and waiter in bars and restaurants and interior decoration work, before dedicating himself full time to painting.
Kooning mastered the technique of drawing, as can be seen in his drawing of Dead nature from 1921, in which it is possible to see the quality of the drawing in the proportion of objects, spatial perspective and the attribution of light and shadow. Despite this, throughout his production, Kooning renounced his realist skills to dedicate himself mainly to abstract art, with broad, gestural brushstrokes and a bold palette of colors, and the combination of abstract and figurative elements.
Reclining Man (John F. Kennedy), from 1963, is an example of his abstract and minimally figurative composition. On the left side of the painting, the mouth, nose and eye, even if slightly disfigured, allow us to associate the head of a person reclining horizontally. Art historian Judith Zilczer also proposes that the position of the man lying down, in addition to the title, may refer to the assassination of the then president of the United States, John F. Kennedy.
Exponent of Abstract Expressionism
Kooning is recognized as one of the great artists of abstract expressionism, triggered by European expressionism at the beginning of the 20th century. Expressionism radicalized the lack of interest in imitating reality that was lost in impressionism, in addition to denying the positivism of its predecessor and having fewer pictorial “rules”, such as attention to the incidence of light in nature. Expressionism is characterized mainly by the emotional drama, negativism, subjectivity and unconsciousness of the painters who still remained in figuration (works with recognizable figures).
In contrast, abstract expressionism broke almost or completely with figures. The movement emerged in the 1940s and became very present in the United States until the 1960s. Furthermore, it is characterized by a painting style that emphasizes emotional expressiveness, improvisation, experimentation and creative freedom.
The stock market crash of 1929 and the Second World War were decisive issues for the formation of this artistic movement. In reaction to the global impacts of these episodes, artists began more experimental, less technical and rational processes than was seen before in other European movements such as, for example, geometric abstractionism and expressionism.
The consecration and relevance of this movement was partly favored by the transfer of the “capital” of western art from Paris to New York, also influenced by the exile of European artists and intellectuals during the Second World War.
Abstract expressionist artists did not form a formal group with an affiliation or manifesto, but they often exhibited together in galleries and museums and shared ideas about art and culture. In addition to Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Franz Kline, Joan Mitchell, Lee Krasner, Helen Frankenthaler and Elaine de Kooning were notable abstract expressionist artists.
Kooning’s languages
The artist ventured into other languages, such as collage, lithography and bronze sculpture. The artist’s sculptures do not have great technical precision and maintain their abstract proposal and deformation. Hostess (Host), for example, refers to a standing body thanks to the proportions of height and mass distribution, in addition to elements distributed horizontally at the top that allude to arms.
Kooning knew how to explore abstraction and figuration well, so much so that throughout his career he adopted different styles. the lithograph Devil at the Keyboard (Diabo no Teclado), from 1976, for example, depicts in just a few lines what appears to be a male figure holding a pitchfork, with random scribbles around it that can be recognized as the keys on a keyboard. The work is completely at odds with Kooning’s large canvases, such as Excavation (Excavation), a large-scale abstract painting that features layers upon layers of paint, forming a composition with grotesque and compulsive forms, which was even shown at the 25th Venice Biennale, in 1950.
Door to the River (Porta para o Rio) is another example of the artist’s vast expression. This 2 meter painting is composed of large masses of paints in a reduced palette in few variations of white, gray, yellow rose and blue. The canvas is part of the theme of abstract landscapes which the artist also focused on.
Criticisms of de Kooning
The painter’s production was criticized by Harold Rosenberg and Clement Greenberg, renowned American art critics. They played a pivotal role with their critiques and comments that boosted Kooning’s career.
Rosenberg coined the term Action Painting (Action Painting) to describe the spontaneous, gestural style that emphasized physical action in the artistic process. Kooning and Jackson Pollock pioneered this technique.
Thomas Hess was another American critic who admired Kooning’s output. He praised the artist’s gestural style, as well as his ability to create works that combined figurative and abstract elements. This combination, which appears to be one of the most attractive Kooning identities praised by Hess, was the subject of negative criticism by Greenberg, who argued that it made his works confusing and ambiguous.
Despite these tensions, both Greenberg and Kooning were important figures in the development of Abstract Expressionism and helped to elevate American painting to the world art scene. The relationship between the two is an example of the complexities and conflicts that arise within the art world, even among those who share a common movement or aesthetic vision.
Kooning and Greenberg appear in Jackson Pollock’s biographical film, which presents his life and career, as well as recounting the painter’s relationship with the powerful collector Peggy Guggenheim. The relationship between Pollock and Kooning is also discussed in the Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Art of Rivalry by art critic Sebastian Smee.
The emblematic series of paintings by women
One of the themes that Kooning portrayed was the female figure. “Woman” (was the most emblematic series of the artist’s career. The controversy surrounding these works stems largely from the fact that they seem to portray women in a disrespectful and sexist way, as if they were objects to be manipulated by the artist.
In 1953, the art critic of the The New York Times, Marya Mannes, pointed out that Kooning’s paintings of women were “hateful” and “monstrous”, and that they portrayed women as “dismembered corpses”. in the paintings Woman (Woman) and Woman I (Woman I), one perceives a strangeness and dismemberment of the figures. The artist deforms bodies with masses of colored paint, and disfigures faces, in an abstract setting that blends in with the figures.
However, it is important to note that not all reviews of Kooning’s paintings of women were negative. Some art critics defended the importance of these works in the context of modern art history, argued that they represented a legitimate expression of artistic freedom and that he was trying to challenge conventional expectations of how the female figure should be portrayed in art.
The present consecration
The artist struggled with personal issues like alcoholism and the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s in the late 1980s, when he was in his 80s. Some art critics have noted that his later works, which had more simplified forms, may have been influenced by his struggle with illness, traits seen in Quality of a Piece of Paper (Quality of a Piece of Paper), from 1987, in which he uses less texture and paint mass in the painting in primary tones – yellow, red and blue. Despite his declining health, he continued to paint until his death in 1997 at the age of 92.
Willem de Kooning’s work continues to be highly prized in the contemporary art world. His works are sought after by private collectors and are exhibited in different museums around the world, such as Whitney Museum of American Artin New York; Depot Boijmans Van Beuningenin Rotterdam; University of Arizona Museum of Artin Arizona, among others.
In 2022 the museum Getty Centerin Los Angeles, presented the exhibition Conserving de Kooning: Theft and Recovery (Conserving de Kooning: Theft and Recovery). The exhibition started from the recovery of the painting Woman-Ochre (Woman-Ocre), stolen by a couple in 1985, in University of Arizona Museum of Art.
The theft of the canvas valued at around $100 million after it was found in a New Mexico home in 2017 has been made into a documentary film: The Thief Collector.
Kooning in the art market
Kooning’s works are still frequently traded at auction, such as Untitled XXIauctioned at Sotheby’s in New York for $24.9 million in 2015, and Amityville, sold for $11.6 million at the same auction house in 2018.
Among the last canvas sales by the artist, Interchange (Intercâmbio), canvas present in the list of the 10 most expensive works of art in the world, being until now the most expensive abstract painting, sold in 2015 by the David Geffen Foundation, for US$ 300 million.
Daniken Domene is an audiovisual technician and majoring in Art: History, Criticism and Curatorship at PUC-SP.
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