Willem de Kooning (MoMA artist Series) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0870707884 ISBN 13: 9780870707889

Publisher: The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2011

Synopsis

Willem de Kooning was a pioneering figure of Abstract Expressionism, one of the most influential champions of the dynamic, process-driven painting that brought New York to the center of the art world in the 1940s and 1950s. This new volume in the MoMA artist series examines ten of de Kooning's most memorable achievements as seen in pieces from The Museum's substantial collection of his work, including paintings and drawings from his Woman series and other important works produced throughout his career. An essay by Carolyn Lanchner, a former curator of painting and sculpture at the Museum, accompanies each work.

About this title

About the Author:

Sally Yard has taught art history at Mount Holyoke and Amhert Colleges, the University of California, San Diego, and the University of San Diego, where she is associate professor and chair of the department of fine arts. Her books include Willem de Kooning: The First Twenty-Sex Years in New York and Francis Bacon, coauthored with Hugh Davies.

From Publishers Weekly:

While some critics see an artistic decline in de Kooning's output from the 1970s onward, Waldman, deputy director of the Guggenheim Museum, champions his "great and innovative late body of work." Countering charges that his flamboyant "Woman" series is sexist because it portrays females as objects of male manipulation, the author retorts, "This is how women were perceived in the 1950s." She finds de Kooning's goddess-whore icons "as resplendent as any Venus that has come down to us through the ages." Combining stuffy solemnity and critical overkill, this study is nevertheless useful for its analyses of individual paintings. Its 112 reproductions (half in color) include urban landscapes, portraits fusing the real and the imaginary, black-and-white abstractions, knotty sculpture. Also here are the simple paintings of the '80s, an emptying out of all but essential shape, line and color.
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About this edition

• Publisher: The Museum of Modern Art, New York
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0870707884
• ISBN 13: 9780870707889
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 48