Books about Kooning from Amazon.com

Willem de Kooning is celebrated in the United States as one of the most significant artists of the 20th century and a leading Abstract Expressionist In Europe, however, the artist has yet to be fully recognized, particularly with regards to his work of the 1960s and 1970s, when he retreated from urban life to live and work on Long Island. This segment of de Kooning's oeuvre bears the imprint of a fundamental experience of the landscape, for it was in these Long Island works that he developed a new style of figuration, characterized by a transformed sense of color and energetic gesture. This period of vigorous, pioneering creativity is illuminated for the first time in this volume, which features a concentrated selection of large-format paintings. In images and essays by Klaus Kertess, Harold Rosenberg, and others, the book illustrates how de Kooning's paintings--although recognizable as landscapes--grew abstract under the influence of his intense experience of nature..
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Willem de Kooning is one of the most important artists of the twentieth century, a true “painter’s painter” whose protean work continues to inspire many artists. In the thirties and forties, along with Arshile Gorky and Jackson Pollock, he became a key figure in the revolutionary American movement of abstract expressionism. Of all the painters in that group, he worked the longest and was the most prolific, creating powerful, startling images well into the 1980s.

The first major biography of de Kooning captures both the life and work of this complex, romantic figure in American culture. Ten years in the making, and based on previously unseen letters and documents as well as on hundreds of interviews, this is a fresh, richly detailed, and masterful portrait. The young de Kooning overcame an unstable, impoverished, and often violent early family life to enter the Academie in Rotterdam, where he learned both classic art and guild techniques. Arriving in New York as a stowaway from Holland in 1926, he underwent a long struggle to become a painter and an American, developing a passionate friendship with his fellow immigrant Arshile Gorky, who was both a mentor and an inspiration. During the Depression, de Kooning emerged as a central figure in the bohemian world of downtown New York, surviving by doing commercial work and painting murals for the WPA. His first show at the Egan Gallery in 1948 was a revelation. Soon, the critics Harold Rosenberg and Thomas Hess were championing his work, and de Kooning took his place as the charismatic leader of the New York school—just as American art began to dominate the international scene.

Dashingly handsome and treated like a movie star on the streets of downtown New York, de Kooning had a tumultuous marriage to Elaine de Kooning, herself a fascinating character of the period. At the height of his fame, he spent his days painting powerful abstractions and intense, disturbing pictures of the female figure—and his nights living on the edge, drinking, womanizing, and talking at the Cedar bar with such friends as Franz Kline and Frank O’Hara. By the 1960s, exhausted by the feverish art world, he retreated to the Springs on Long Island, where he painted an extraordinary series of lush pastorals. In the 1980s, as he slowly declined into what was almost certainly Alzheimer’s, he created a vast body of haunting and ethereal late work.

This is an authoritative and brilliant exploration of the art, life, and world of an American master.


From the Hardcover edition..
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Visual art in the period following World War II witnessed landmark transformations Today, drawing provides a powerful and vigorous device for reexamining the art of that period, and for renewing appreciation of the extraordinary achievements of well-known artists--and for discovering others. Even though the art of these years saw radical departures and shifts, drawing, which is among the most traditional of media, played a crucial and consistent role in the work of a great majority of the most significant artists. Drawing from the Modern, 1945-1975, surveys the drawing of the period through the unparalleled holdings of the drawings collection of The Museum of Modern Art. The postwar period saw the development of Abstract Expressionism in New York, followed by Pop art, Minimal art, and Conceptual art, and the Museum's collection has exceptional strength in these areas. Abstract drawings by Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Barnett Newman open this volume, followed by works by such key figures as Jasper Johns, Ellsworth Kelly, and Cy Twombly. Next, drawings by Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, and Andy Warhol signal the arrival of a new figurative art at the forefront of creativity. But reductive and abstract art kept pace, and the Museum's collection offers a breathtaking array of drawings by Carl Andre, Dan Flavin, Eva Hesse, Sol LeWitt, Brice Marden, Agnes Martin, Richard Serra, and numerous others. What constitutes "progress" in art is questioned today, and it is no longer possible to see the development of art as a straight line, with synchronicity among places and geographies. But drawing, by its very nature, encourages established understandings to be examined and accepted values to be reappraised. Many of the artists represented here defy easy categorization, including Lee Bontecou, Louise Bourgeois, Vija Celmins, Bruce Conner, Ray Johnson, Jim Nutt, and Myron Stout. The resurgence of European art is represented by drawings by Georg Baselitz, Joseph Beuys, Marcel Broodthaers, Piero Manzoni, Henri Michaux, Mario Merz, and Sigmar Polke, among others. A number the most important artists working in Latin America in the postwar period are also represented, including Jorge de la Vega, Gego, LeAn Ferrari, Halio Oiticica, and Mira Schendel. While neither the collection nor this volume is encyclopedic, the spirit and achievements of postwar art are distilled and amply celebrated here..
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This beautiful book presents a retrospective of eighty of Willem de Kooning`s finest paintings and painted works on paper. The book reassesses de Kooning`s critical status as one of America`s greatest and most influential artists, examines the complexity of his painting techniques, and places him in the context of other artists and art movements of his era. The book serves as the catalogue for a major exhibition of de Kooning`s work presented at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the Metropolitan Museum in New York, and the Tate Gallery in London..
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Addition to Basic Arts series covering the most prominent pieces of de Kooning's body of work.
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Insightfully reconciles de Kooning's sometimes offputting and strangely evasive art with the vulnerable, genial, yet alienated Dutch immigrant intriguing visions of cataclysmic visions and pain. De Kooning's unique approach to his subjects is presented in such a way that the reader can have the sudden enlightenment, or Aha!, experience: "Now I get de Kooning's importance as a major modern figure...now I see why the 'smart' crowd ooohs and aaahs over him" Rich with background information about the New York School and the people who influenced him; plentiful anecdotes and pertinent and poignant quotes..
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