Willem de Kooning

by Harry F. Gaugh and Thomas B. text Hess

Book Overview

Willem de Kooning had a restless, probing creativity, pushing on from one style to the next. The battle between abstraction and figuration was essential to his art as he moved from the profound black-and-white abstractions of the 1940s to the ferocious Women of the 1950s, through the later "landscapes" and the final lyrical abstractions. This richly illustrated volume offers a perceptive and sympathetic view of an artist who made some of the greatest...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0896593320
• ISBN13: 9780896593329
• Release Date: September 1992
• Publisher: Abbeville Press
• Length: 136 Pages
• Weight: 2.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 8.6" x 11.1"

Customer Reviews

His Study of Women vs. Himself

I was enjoying my book of de Kooning's work years ago, when I was painting in that same abstract expressionist style. I especially loved his "portraits" of women done within that style. I was showing them to hubby one night and he said, "The women look just like him. I think he was painting himself." Well, whose the artist in this household, huh? That was my first thought. My second was that, darn it all, hubby was right! As I went back through the paintings, I couldn't believe I'd missed seeing that. Just like writers, artists spend a lot of time doing autobiographical work, sometimes not even knowing they are doing so themselves. de kooning lived to a very old age and his work became simpler yet still in variations of his basic abstractionism. I think he was a marvelous painter and well worth studying but if you hate abstract expressionist art, he is not for you. There are a number of filmed documentaries, which show him painting in his studio, that I saw years ago. They are well worth chasing down as well for artists. He spent as much time looking at his paintings, studying them as they evolved, maybe even more time, which is a very natural thing for an artist to do once in the creative process. If you ever feel guilty for just staring and staring at your work before moving onto its next stage, de kooning can make you feel much better about yourself!