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Lot Essay
Comparable to Jackson Pollock's revolutionary drip paintings, nothing so much expressed the burgeoning rebellious attitude that embodied grittiness of New York and the "damn the consequences" mantra accepted in the early beginnings of Abstract Expressionism as Willem de Kooning's landmark black-and-white abstractions. Housed in the world's most prominent public collections, from the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, to the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, Black and Gray Composition is a rare and spectacular example of de Kooning's early black-and-white abstractions, which are considered to be among the artist's greatest achievements.
Within his seven decade long career, indeed one of the greatest periods of output was the impressive achievement of de Kooning's black-and-white abstractions that unspooled through 1947, '48, and '49 toward--perhaps what could be considered the defining moment in the artist's career--the creation of Excavation (Art Institute of Chicago) in 1950, the epic end point of the series. Among the most arresting works of the 1940s, the black-and-white paintings exemplify the new freedom that de Kooning broke into all on his own. In Black and Gray Composition the figure fractures apart into myriad pieces. The entire surface pulses with life and tumultuous rhythm. The shapes shift and dissolve before the eye. De Kooning's use of space is ambiguous--the figure and the ground are inseparable through the paintings x-ray-like vision. With the artist's famous whiplash brushstroke dancing across the surface, the composition is animated into a fully activated field.
From his tumultuous upbringing in Rotterdam, his rampant drinking, turbulent relationship with Elaine, and storied bicycle rides around Louse Point, de Kooning's biography deserves its place among the greatest works of fiction as one of the most colorful, expressive, tragic, and dramatic stories of its time. Among the fabled accounts of the artist's life, perhaps none so much embodies the zeitgeist of the late 1940s as oft-told tale form which de Kooning's black-and-white compositions were born. Having befriended the artist Franz Kline in the early 1940s, it was from Kline that de Kooning had adopted the rebellious mantra of the decade. Without a dollar to waste, the two artists famously and endemically found themselves without supplies. Applying a "damn the consequences" mentality they sought to forego purchasing the expensive paints made for art, and instead bought their materials from a store on the Bowery for sign painters and letterers. Realizing that commercial colors would fade, Kline and de Kooning each purchased a five-gallon can of black enamel paint as well as a can of white enamel paint. Additionally, the two shared a ream of commercial artist's paper that, in an effort to preserve the painting, they then sized or glue-coated. "On 4th Avenue," he recounted of the time, "I was painting in black and white a lot. Not with a chip on my shoulder about it, but I needed a lot of paint and I wanted to get free of materials. I could get a gallon of black paint and a gallon of white paint, and I could go to town" (W. de Kooning, quoted in M. Stevens and A. Swan, Willem de Kooning: An American Master, New York, 2011, p. 245).
Often adapting shapes used in one work to fit a wholly different composition, de Kooning famously implemented tracing paper to directly copy forms from one painting into another. A working process which Thomas Hess noted, "Shapes do not meet or overlap or rest apart as planes; rather there is a leap from shape to shape; the 'passages' look technically 'impossible.' This is a concept, which comes form collages, where the eye moves from one material to another in similar impossible bounds. De Kooning often paints 'jumps' by putting a drawing into a work-in-progress, sometimes painting over part of it and then removing it, using it as a mask or template, sometimes leaving it in the picture" (T. Hess, quoted in J. Elderfield, de Kooning: A Retrospective, exh. cat., Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2011, p. 141). Simultaneously working on several compositions with the same basic figures rearranged in varying ways, it is possible to connect the "jumps" in de Kooning's working process from one painting to another--linking a strange lineage of similar shapes as they move, morph change colors, shrink, and expand across the surfaces of the compositions. More so, these reoccurring motifs would manifest themselves during varying periods of the artists career, at different orientations, and different sizes--lending to de Kooning's extreme mastery of shape-building.
Of particular interest to de Kooning was the central form in Black and Gray Composition--which has often been called the "reclining figure" and has a particularly rich history throughout the artist's oeuvre. Perhaps steaming from an 1942 drawing, Woman, in which a large breasted female is peers awkwardly out of the picture plane with strangely contorted legs and a phallic shaped head, or perhaps an even early abstraction of de Kooning's 1938 Reclining Nude (Juliet Browner), this strange Brueghel-esque character warps and weaves its way around de Kooning's early oeuvre--haunting his paintings from the 1940s it emerges as one of the most recognizable, yet most ominous creatures in the artist's output. In fact, a strong connection can be made between Black and Gray Composition and Night of the same year, which is currently housed in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Perhaps the positive to Black and Gray Compositions negative, the two paintings emerge side-by-side as distant relatives. Arranged in a similar pattern each composition is dominated by a central, menacing 'reclining figure,' which appears windswept over the right-hand side of the painting. Flanked on either side by haunting biomorphic forms, which recall a chaotic mash up of letters--which de Kooning was experimenting with at the time in works like Zurich and Orestes--or the more sinister forms in the paintings of his close friend Arshile Gorky, Black and Gray Composition and Night are clearly linked.
While de Kooning was reticent about using still life vocabulary, or employing too many shapes that too closely resemble objects, he still notably attested that "even abstract shapes must have a likeness" (W. de Kooning, J. Elderfield, ibid., p. 13). Indeed, these highly mesmerizing and often intricately linked black-and-white paintings--upon close inspection, as well as in relation to other pictures within the artist's oeuvre--do adopt their own--though at times tangled--figurative quality. It is through this genesis of the intertwining and reuse of biomorphic shapes that simultaneously allude to and reject any external associations, as well as through the necessary implementation of 'low art' materials that the black-and-white paintings serve as the cornerstone for the artist's career.
While de Kooning sought to remove the high-traditions of art from his own works throughout his storied career, there is no doubt that his extreme lack of funds in the late 1940s lent an element of truth to the birth of his black period. The paintings that came out of this crucial period in the artist's oeuvre serve as the definitive fulcrum that would launch the rest of his eminent production. For, as the critic Thomas B. Hess recounted, Barnett Newman had once stated of de Kooning's black-and-white paintings, "When an artist wants to change, when he wants to invent, he goes to black; it is a way of clearing the table--of getting to new ideas," (T. Hess, Willem de Kooning, New York, 1968, p. 50). Indeed, the significance of these paintings and their humble beginnings was not lost on the artist, as de Kooning would keep the two original cans of enamel for the rest of his life--resolving not to lose them as he changed studios. And while he would never return to the predominantly black and white compositional format as his paintings evolved, the ever-present reminder of the paint cans would serve as a symbol for the artist's own dark genesis.
Within his seven decade long career, indeed one of the greatest periods of output was the impressive achievement of de Kooning's black-and-white abstractions that unspooled through 1947, '48, and '49 toward--perhaps what could be considered the defining moment in the artist's career--the creation of Excavation (Art Institute of Chicago) in 1950, the epic end point of the series. Among the most arresting works of the 1940s, the black-and-white paintings exemplify the new freedom that de Kooning broke into all on his own. In Black and Gray Composition the figure fractures apart into myriad pieces. The entire surface pulses with life and tumultuous rhythm. The shapes shift and dissolve before the eye. De Kooning's use of space is ambiguous--the figure and the ground are inseparable through the paintings x-ray-like vision. With the artist's famous whiplash brushstroke dancing across the surface, the composition is animated into a fully activated field.
From his tumultuous upbringing in Rotterdam, his rampant drinking, turbulent relationship with Elaine, and storied bicycle rides around Louse Point, de Kooning's biography deserves its place among the greatest works of fiction as one of the most colorful, expressive, tragic, and dramatic stories of its time. Among the fabled accounts of the artist's life, perhaps none so much embodies the zeitgeist of the late 1940s as oft-told tale form which de Kooning's black-and-white compositions were born. Having befriended the artist Franz Kline in the early 1940s, it was from Kline that de Kooning had adopted the rebellious mantra of the decade. Without a dollar to waste, the two artists famously and endemically found themselves without supplies. Applying a "damn the consequences" mentality they sought to forego purchasing the expensive paints made for art, and instead bought their materials from a store on the Bowery for sign painters and letterers. Realizing that commercial colors would fade, Kline and de Kooning each purchased a five-gallon can of black enamel paint as well as a can of white enamel paint. Additionally, the two shared a ream of commercial artist's paper that, in an effort to preserve the painting, they then sized or glue-coated. "On 4th Avenue," he recounted of the time, "I was painting in black and white a lot. Not with a chip on my shoulder about it, but I needed a lot of paint and I wanted to get free of materials. I could get a gallon of black paint and a gallon of white paint, and I could go to town" (W. de Kooning, quoted in M. Stevens and A. Swan, Willem de Kooning: An American Master, New York, 2011, p. 245).
Often adapting shapes used in one work to fit a wholly different composition, de Kooning famously implemented tracing paper to directly copy forms from one painting into another. A working process which Thomas Hess noted, "Shapes do not meet or overlap or rest apart as planes; rather there is a leap from shape to shape; the 'passages' look technically 'impossible.' This is a concept, which comes form collages, where the eye moves from one material to another in similar impossible bounds. De Kooning often paints 'jumps' by putting a drawing into a work-in-progress, sometimes painting over part of it and then removing it, using it as a mask or template, sometimes leaving it in the picture" (T. Hess, quoted in J. Elderfield, de Kooning: A Retrospective, exh. cat., Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2011, p. 141). Simultaneously working on several compositions with the same basic figures rearranged in varying ways, it is possible to connect the "jumps" in de Kooning's working process from one painting to another--linking a strange lineage of similar shapes as they move, morph change colors, shrink, and expand across the surfaces of the compositions. More so, these reoccurring motifs would manifest themselves during varying periods of the artists career, at different orientations, and different sizes--lending to de Kooning's extreme mastery of shape-building.
Of particular interest to de Kooning was the central form in Black and Gray Composition--which has often been called the "reclining figure" and has a particularly rich history throughout the artist's oeuvre. Perhaps steaming from an 1942 drawing, Woman, in which a large breasted female is peers awkwardly out of the picture plane with strangely contorted legs and a phallic shaped head, or perhaps an even early abstraction of de Kooning's 1938 Reclining Nude (Juliet Browner), this strange Brueghel-esque character warps and weaves its way around de Kooning's early oeuvre--haunting his paintings from the 1940s it emerges as one of the most recognizable, yet most ominous creatures in the artist's output. In fact, a strong connection can be made between Black and Gray Composition and Night of the same year, which is currently housed in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Perhaps the positive to Black and Gray Compositions negative, the two paintings emerge side-by-side as distant relatives. Arranged in a similar pattern each composition is dominated by a central, menacing 'reclining figure,' which appears windswept over the right-hand side of the painting. Flanked on either side by haunting biomorphic forms, which recall a chaotic mash up of letters--which de Kooning was experimenting with at the time in works like Zurich and Orestes--or the more sinister forms in the paintings of his close friend Arshile Gorky, Black and Gray Composition and Night are clearly linked.
While de Kooning was reticent about using still life vocabulary, or employing too many shapes that too closely resemble objects, he still notably attested that "even abstract shapes must have a likeness" (W. de Kooning, J. Elderfield, ibid., p. 13). Indeed, these highly mesmerizing and often intricately linked black-and-white paintings--upon close inspection, as well as in relation to other pictures within the artist's oeuvre--do adopt their own--though at times tangled--figurative quality. It is through this genesis of the intertwining and reuse of biomorphic shapes that simultaneously allude to and reject any external associations, as well as through the necessary implementation of 'low art' materials that the black-and-white paintings serve as the cornerstone for the artist's career.
While de Kooning sought to remove the high-traditions of art from his own works throughout his storied career, there is no doubt that his extreme lack of funds in the late 1940s lent an element of truth to the birth of his black period. The paintings that came out of this crucial period in the artist's oeuvre serve as the definitive fulcrum that would launch the rest of his eminent production. For, as the critic Thomas B. Hess recounted, Barnett Newman had once stated of de Kooning's black-and-white paintings, "When an artist wants to change, when he wants to invent, he goes to black; it is a way of clearing the table--of getting to new ideas," (T. Hess, Willem de Kooning, New York, 1968, p. 50). Indeed, the significance of these paintings and their humble beginnings was not lost on the artist, as de Kooning would keep the two original cans of enamel for the rest of his life--resolving not to lose them as he changed studios. And while he would never return to the predominantly black and white compositional format as his paintings evolved, the ever-present reminder of the paint cans would serve as a symbol for the artist's own dark genesis.