The Awe-Inspiring Brilliance of Willem De Kooning
Willem de Kooning is certainly one of the masters of the New York avant-garde and the New York School of painting. A process-oriented, labor-intensive, relentlessly inventive artist that reinvented himself, again and again, leaving no one way to define him, refusing to fall under any of the labels and associations of the Abstract-Expressionist movement. The retrospective exhibition devoted to the full scope of the career of Willem de Kooning in the Museum of Modern Art in 2011 solidified his position as one of the best artists of the 20th century.
Paul McCartney and Willem De Kooning, 1983, shot by Linda McCartney
His life in the United States may come off as a version of the “American Dream” of an artist. Coming along on a ship (Shelley) as a stowaway in 1926, working his way to fame and reputation not many years later, and eventually being awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964, only two years after receiving his American citizenship. De Kooning started off as a house and sign painter (he was also an avid fan of highway billboards), learning how to use different brushes and techniques, some of which he never ceased to use in his later work. He passed on some of his experiences, for example employment of thinner brushes used to write company names on signs to his colleagues, such as Arshile Gorky, in order to create confidence, but precise lines seen in both artists’ works.
It is often said that he never finished a painting, just that his paintings escaped from the studio for a while, as he was relentless in his editing, “muscular” scraping off paint and reapplying it again. One of MoMa’s conservators of de Kooning, Corey D'Augustine said, “there was as much paint coming off the painting, as there was coming on”. Even though the paintings may seem chaotic or disorganized, with his corrections de Kooning was getting away from the notion of spontaneity, as if installing a self-made obsession with the improvement of his works, such as Woman I. He often used rather peculiar materials and techniques, such as cooking oils, newspapers, etc. in order to introduce fresh elements to his canvases. On top of that, he also experimented with the viscosity of his paints, in order to make it more slithery and easier to apply. Moreover, as his works often sat in the studio for months, or even years (Woman I was his record of over 18 months of work in the studio), he took careful and patient periods of looking at the painting and understanding what to do with it next.
Willem de Kooning, Woman I, 1950–52
Even though his style was ever-changing, he preferred creating tightly dense spaces on his canvases, by adding detail in a complex pictorial activity, like with a jigsaw puzzle. This was specifically visible during his cubist period, on the brink of the 1940s and 50s when he re-introduced figuration into his work. He was also more prone to use influences of the classic European artists, such as Pompeian frescoes and portraits of the Old Masters, found in the Metropolitan Museum, than his peers from the New York School, which tended to reject European influences and avoid precedents in their work to create a completely new American artistic language.
De Kooning’s style evolved with time but also as he moved away from the urban chaos and rush of Manhattan, onto his land in Long Island in the late 1950s. The change of scenery brought about a complete change of style in painting, seen visibly in A Tree in Naples, which was inspired by his travels to Italy, using wide brushes from his house painting times he turned back to abstraction through wide and expansive brushstrokes, with only bursts of spontaneous movements. My personal favorite style of Willem de Kooning began in the mid-1960s, with Clam Diggers (1963), while in his rural studio he turned towards a softer approach - “Everything should float”- more oblique figures, as if mimicking the effect of flowing water, also by using a more light and pastel palette.
Willem de Kooning, UNTITLED, circa 1972
His further works included both sculpture and painting, as he kept experimenting with techniques and materials he introduced into his pieces. From the 1970s his health started deteriorating as he turned towards alcoholism, later treated with the help of his wife, Elaine de Kooning. Despite his Alzheimer’s worsening in the 1980s, he still managed to produce works, such as Pirate (Untitled II), which represent a further evolution of his painting style, even though they are sometimes subject to doubts about de Kooning’s input in the works under his disease.
A highly innovative and unique artist, whose talent shined through his work ever since his teenage years in the Netherlands, who created fruitfully until his last years, who was an educator at Yale School of Art, as well as the Black Mountain College in North Carolina. There is no easy way to grasp his brilliance and character, but there is no better way than to do it with his own words:
“You have to change to stay the same”
Willem de Kooning, Women Singing II, 1966
Willem de Kooning, Untitled, circa 1960