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Lot Essay
"I can't get away from the woman. Wherever I look, I find her"-Willem de Kooning.
In 1963, Willem de Kooning left New York City for the pastoral environs of East Hampton, New York; the dramatic change in scenery proved to be a catalyst for a shift in the artist's work. In East Hampton, de Kooning found himself deeply moved by nature and began to incorporate it into his work by means of a series of paintings representing female figures in landscapes. In these works, de Kooning returned to the subject responsible for his initial fame: the woman. However, instead of the aggressive, maniacal-looking women of the 1950's, this new group of women were an altogether more jubilant group. As art historian Thomas Hess writes, "de Kooning's pictures of the 1960s are drained of the anguish and look of despair which had so profoundly marked his earlier work. In the new Woman, the mood is Joy" (T. Hess, de Kooning: Recent Paintings, New York, 1968 p. 43).
The present lot is a prime example of de Kooning's work from this period. The painting is a tour-de-force of bright, vivacious colors laid on the canvas in de Kooning's signature bold strokes. The scene depicts two nude figures, each delineated with the use of a fleshy-pink tone outlined by a robust red. They appear to be in a pastoral landscape, which he hints at with the use of blues and greens. The earlier aggression of de Kooning's brushstroke has been granted a softer touch, as his palette gave way to more romantic tonalities. The lyrical blend of pink, yellow, and white coupled with the absence of any landscape and figuration reduce the title to its conceptual base-the pastoral scene as a distant even abstract realm of freedom and fantasy for the urban bourgeois.
In 1963, Willem de Kooning left New York City for the pastoral environs of East Hampton, New York; the dramatic change in scenery proved to be a catalyst for a shift in the artist's work. In East Hampton, de Kooning found himself deeply moved by nature and began to incorporate it into his work by means of a series of paintings representing female figures in landscapes. In these works, de Kooning returned to the subject responsible for his initial fame: the woman. However, instead of the aggressive, maniacal-looking women of the 1950's, this new group of women were an altogether more jubilant group. As art historian Thomas Hess writes, "de Kooning's pictures of the 1960s are drained of the anguish and look of despair which had so profoundly marked his earlier work. In the new Woman, the mood is Joy" (T. Hess, de Kooning: Recent Paintings, New York, 1968 p. 43).
The present lot is a prime example of de Kooning's work from this period. The painting is a tour-de-force of bright, vivacious colors laid on the canvas in de Kooning's signature bold strokes. The scene depicts two nude figures, each delineated with the use of a fleshy-pink tone outlined by a robust red. They appear to be in a pastoral landscape, which he hints at with the use of blues and greens. The earlier aggression of de Kooning's brushstroke has been granted a softer touch, as his palette gave way to more romantic tonalities. The lyrical blend of pink, yellow, and white coupled with the absence of any landscape and figuration reduce the title to its conceptual base-the pastoral scene as a distant even abstract realm of freedom and fantasy for the urban bourgeois.