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Lot Essay
Despite the evident change of genre and style, in his landscape motifs, de Kooning continued his persistent investigation of painting as a medium.(B. Hess, De Kooning, Cologne, 2004, p. 52).
Painted in 1958, Willem de Kooning’s Untitled is representative of a pivotal moment in the artist’s oeuvre. Though at first glance Untitled may seem to be purely abstract, made up of simple, sweeping painterly strokes, a closer look reveals evidence of the natural world. The painting can be understood as a landscape, with winding roads, golden fields and a cloudless sky. Untitled employs rich browns, subtle reds, radiant yellows and entrancing blues, evoking an expansive, pastoral landscape. Interpretations of the highway positioned against open fields and bright skies envelop the canvas, rendered in gestural, broad brushstrokes. In his truest form, de Kooning evokes a memory; straying away from the literal and instead focusing on emotion and expression.
In 1957, de Kooning began to spend less time in New York City and more in Long Island. Lengthy rides between the two, twisting roads and highways, whirring fields and never-ending horizons inspired the beginning of de Kooning’s expressive Abstract Parkway Landscape paintings. His travels had a resounding effect on his work, as he began to consider new concepts of space and light. In stark digression from the figurative Woman paintings de Kooning was creating in the early 1950s, his series of Abstract Parkways exemplify just how important landscapes were to the artist’s painterly development. As the 1950s progressed, de Kooning’s Woman paintings became increasingly abstracted, the human forms he was painting were distorted until they were entirely unrecognizable. Untitled was created in this moment of transformation. His attention turned from raw urban vitality to luminescent landscape, but rather than abandoning his previous practice, he let it inform his work moving forward.
Painted in 1958, Willem de Kooning’s Untitled is representative of a pivotal moment in the artist’s oeuvre. Though at first glance Untitled may seem to be purely abstract, made up of simple, sweeping painterly strokes, a closer look reveals evidence of the natural world. The painting can be understood as a landscape, with winding roads, golden fields and a cloudless sky. Untitled employs rich browns, subtle reds, radiant yellows and entrancing blues, evoking an expansive, pastoral landscape. Interpretations of the highway positioned against open fields and bright skies envelop the canvas, rendered in gestural, broad brushstrokes. In his truest form, de Kooning evokes a memory; straying away from the literal and instead focusing on emotion and expression.
In 1957, de Kooning began to spend less time in New York City and more in Long Island. Lengthy rides between the two, twisting roads and highways, whirring fields and never-ending horizons inspired the beginning of de Kooning’s expressive Abstract Parkway Landscape paintings. His travels had a resounding effect on his work, as he began to consider new concepts of space and light. In stark digression from the figurative Woman paintings de Kooning was creating in the early 1950s, his series of Abstract Parkways exemplify just how important landscapes were to the artist’s painterly development. As the 1950s progressed, de Kooning’s Woman paintings became increasingly abstracted, the human forms he was painting were distorted until they were entirely unrecognizable. Untitled was created in this moment of transformation. His attention turned from raw urban vitality to luminescent landscape, but rather than abandoning his previous practice, he let it inform his work moving forward.