de Kooning: An American Master

When the history of art in the 20th century is written, one of the key movements of the century will be abstract expressionism -- a school of art that moved painting from a visual experience into a cerebral exploration of ideas and emotions.It was a time in the 1940s and 50s when the focus of the art world shifted from Paris to New York. The horrors of World War II were behind us, and American culture was primed to expand. After all, Americans had led the free world to victory over Germany and Japan, and North America was seen as a new frontier. Pioneers were welcome in a world ready for change.Even before the war, the art world was in transition. The Impressionists, the Cubists, the Fauves and the Dada movements had expanded the boundaries of creativity in painting. There were individual artists, such as Vincent Van Gogh, Wassily Kandinsky, Pablo Picasso, Georges Bracque, Constantin Brancusi, Piet Mondrian and Henri Matisse who were geniuses in and of themselves. But no movement had emerged that had taken painting to the next level where the conception of artistic creativity was completely redefined.The abstract expressionists did that.The leading abstract expressionist was Jackson Pollock, according to current popular perception (no doubt helped by a blockbuster retrospective and a Pulitzer Prize winning biography several years ago). But there were others -- such as Hans Hoffman, Arshille Gorky, Franz Kline, Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, and Willem de Kooning -- who were all driving forces in the abstract expressionist movement.A new book, de Kooning: An American Master, gives the Dutch immigrant his due as one of the leading abstract expressionists. Indeed, at the end of the book, one has to consider de Kooning as the leader of the abstract expressionist movement. He outlasted all the others and his successive waves of well defined styles spanned five decades -- a remarkable creative achievement.But it wasn't easy for the immigrant from the Netherlands. Arriving in America in the 1930s, de Kooning took his formal training as an illustrator into the heart of the modern art world in lower Manhattan where he began his remarkable journey. There he fell under the wing of Gorky who introduced the young Dutchman into the romanticism of the Manhattan art world. Gorky's style of painting also had a big influence on the development of de Kooning's own artwork -- nudging him from realism into the abstract.The late 1940s were idyllic times for the young art movement, and it was then that de Kooning made his first breakthrough in a series of black enamel paintings that drew considerable attention in the art world. The black and white paintings were the subject of de Kooning's first one man show, and while the show was a flop from the standpoint of sales, the art critics raved about the new style developed by the Dutch artist. Most important, one of the most influential art critics, Clement Greenberg (who was later to be Pollock's champion) praised the ambiguity of the abstract works of art that allowed the viewer to formulate his own conception of what the artist was trying to achieve.In 1950 de Kooning made an even greater breakthrough in a painting called Excavation -- considered one of the defining paintings of the early abstract expressionist movement. Excavation was a large painting (more than 6 X 8 feet), and de Kooning used subtle touches of color to highlight parts of the painting. The painting captured the essence of the pulsating art world in New York City. There were many interpretations of what de Kooning actually meant, but the painting itself presented itself as a living, breathing display of the energy that was gathering in art circles at that time."No other American painting...conveyed with comparable force the jazzy syncopation of the city," the authors write. "Excavation was a personal improvisation on the great abstract grid of modern urban life..."At the end of the 1940s de Kooning embarked on a more controversial project -- the first of his paintings of women. His first painting in this genre, Woman I, took nearly three years to complete before he felt the work was finished. It was a startling painting, and it gave de Kooning more renown."Woman I was an eruption, opening a Pandora's Box, that not only liberated the demons of one man, but also released many essential issues that would bedevil art and culture during the last half of the twentieth century," the authors write. "The sexual anxiety in Woman I is palpable. It almost forces the eye away.."In short, de Kooning had developed a theme that he would return to again and again in his career. He used his woman paintings to express his fascination with human relations, not only between men and women, but between all humans, no matter what their sex (or sexual tendencies).But the women series also took de Kooning deeper into abstract art, and for the next 20 years his abstract work expanded and matured. His colors became more vibrant, and he used both composition and color to develop themes that fascinated the art world. Pollock's career culminated with his drip paintings from the late 1940s to the mid 1950s, but his violent personal life never took him beyond the oeuvre that he became so well known for. When he died in a suicidal traffic accident, Pollock's art abruptly died with him -- in mid-flight, it seemed.de Kooning, on the other hand, developed a whole series of themes in his art that showed a steady progression until, between 1975 and 1980 he achieved the pinnacle of his creative work in a series of fully mature paintings (...Whose Name was Writ in Water; North Atlantic Light; and a series of untitled paintings, the most prominent of which was Untitled V). In the late 1970s he even stumbled upon sculpture as yet another dimension in his art.But it is in his final period that de Kooning may have left his true mark.By 1980, de Kooning's age and his alcoholism had taken their toll on the man. His mind started to deteriorate and he began to sink into the void of Alzheimer's Disease. But as he did, he developed a new style that simplified his technique. He cleaned up his slashing brush strokes and wild colors, and began to create graceful ribbons of paint on white canvases. Some critics have compared this phase of de Kooning's art with Matisse's cutouts that the French master created in his final days. Other critics scoffed at de Kooning's late work labeling it the product of a failing mind. But viewed in the overall scheme of de Kooning's career, one has to believe that the final works of art represented a cleansing of his work -- a natural summing up of a stunning body of work that neatly represented the abstract expressionist movement.This is a marvelous book that should give de Kooning recognition for his genius and credit for his place as the leader of the abstract expressionist movement. But here's a hint: if you read the biography, have a book of de Kooning's paintings nearby. There are some illustrations in the biography, but only a few. This reviewer happened to have a copy of the catalogue to the 1994 de Kooning retrospective organized by the National Gallery in Washington at hand -- and it was very helpful to be able to examine a reproduction of a painting even while reading the book's analysis of that painting.

Stevens and Swan (a husband-and-wife team) write smooth, evocative prose, and they have created an exhaustive (but not exhausting!) biography. Their writing is generous but fair -- to the people in de Koonings life, to his art, and to the man himself. For instance, the authors do not gloss over Elaine de Kooning's tendency toward self-dealing as dementia overtook Willem, but neither do they emphasize it nor condemn her.Many incidents in de Koonings life and most direct quotes from him have been written about before. That said, Stevens and Swan find much new material, and -- surprisingly -- are able to cast a new, and seemingly clearer, light on some of the well-known events. His romance with Ruth Kligman, the only survivor of the car crash that killed Jackson Pollock and Edith Metzger, is written with understanding and sympathy.Especially rewarding are the chapters dealing with de Kooning's late art. In what I have read, which is not much but at least a little, the late paintings are treated somewhat dismissively. As the simplified work of an artist who has lost the ability to create depth and complexity. In this biography, the authors give the works a longer, more appreciative look and find glowing, floating shapes created with full intent and skill. While de Kooning had earlier taken Picasso and Cubism as his anchor, late in life he looked to Matisse, and admired the paper cut-outs which Matisse created in his old age. Like the floating, shimmering dancers in a Matisse landscape, de Koonings red and blue ribbons float above luminous white or softly tinted grounds.Swan and Stevens correctly note that de Kooning's style was never fixed, but continually changed and developed. He said, "I'm not someone who's ever said anything definitive about his work. In my life also I have very little fixed form. I can change overnight." And his late work is one place along that changing, never-defined artistic trajectory.What struck me hardest, even more than de Kooning's late slide into dementia, was how incredibly long he kept on painting when he was desperately poor and nobody was buying his work. He just kept on defining himself as a painter -- "I don't paint to live, I live to paint" -- and creating works in a style he believed was authentic and true to himself. The man had staying power, and he had guts.I regret that the paperback copy of "de Kooning" can only show reproductions of a few works, and those of course in much reduced size. A good companion for this book is Sally Yard's "Willem de Kooning: Works | Writings | Interviews", 2007, Ediciones Poligrafa.But "de Kooning: An American Master" tells a life story worth reading, whether one loves his art or not. Touching, generous, and true.

This is probably one of, if not, THE greatest biography ever written about an artist. It's a masterpiece, and as Amazon says, "a page turning tale".I relished in following De Kooning's process and progress as an artist from his very beginnings in extreme poverty (living on ketchup in a New York Studio with no heat and spending his money on art supplies) and struggle, to becoming one of the most important and revered painters that ever hit the American painting stage.It was fascinating to read this brilliantly written account of the New York art scene in the 30's and 40's during the depression and war years, and the bursting forth of the powerful American abstract expressionists in the 50's when New York became the powerhouse center of the Art World.Most of all, what I took away from this was De Kooning's fierce commitment to his art; reading of his phenomenal drive and passion to paint every single day, through poverty, rejection, artistic blocks, success, fame and decline, was both mesmerizing and sobering.De Kooning, Portrait of an American Master felt like an experience of being up close with a genius

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I very much enjoyed the book however I don't understand how it can take a month for delivery within the UK.

Absolutely a fantastic account of De Kooning's life. I look forwards to Annalyn and Mark's next book on Francis Bacon.

Great painter