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Lot Essay
In the months leading up to his first solo exhibition at Charles Egan Gallery in spring of 1948, Willem de Kooning reckoned with a thrilling new discovery, as he created an important series of black-and-white paintings that announced his reputation as an abstract painter. In the present work, one of de Kooning’s celebrated abstractions from this seminal series, his limited palette of black-and-white enamel paint is paired with a sumptuous warm ochre-tinged ground, and bristling with the simple but powerful abstract forms that nevertheless offered up a ‘glimpse’ of recognizable imagery. Ten of these important paintings debuted at Charles Eagan Gallery in April of 1948. Although there is no extant checklist, nine of these are known, and include major works like Zurich (Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.); Black Friday (Princeton University Art Museum); and Valentine (Museum of Modern Art, New York). Abstraction belongs to this esteemed body of work.
In the winter of 1947 and spring of 1948, de Kooning painted with confidence and gusto, creating a series of black-and-white paintings that have been described as “among the most beautiful works of the twentieth century” (M. Stevens & A. Swann, De Kooning: An American Master, New York, New York, 2005, p. 248). Whereas just a few years earlier he had been struggling for income and recognition, it was the Egan Gallery exhibit that was a turning-point in his career. Charles Egan, writing in a letter to MoMA curator Alfred H. Barr Jr., just before the exhibit opened, proclaimed that de Kooning “is creating the most important paintings of our time” (C. Egan, quoted in De Kooning: A Retrospective, exh. cat., Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2011, p. 124).
De Kooning’s use of commercial-grade enamel paints, purchased from a store on New York’s Bowery, allowed him the freedom of expression that he so desired in this new series. The enamels were slow-drying and had a slick, semi-glossy appearance, allowing him to work wet-on-wet and therefore acting as the perfect ground for his improvisatory brushwork. The areas where his brush was loaded with traditional oil paint, and happened to contact the slick enamel, resulted in skips and jumps of the brush that he enjoyed, and embraced throughout the present work. “Now that he was free of most colors, de Kooning became more spontaneous, almost drawing with his brush,” Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swann explained, writing in their biography of the artist. “The blackness itself began to seem like a glorious color; there was an element of rapture, an undeniable joy, in de Kooning’s confrontation… In the lush volcanic blacks he found a metaphysical grandeur….” (M. Stevens & A. Swann, op. cit., 2005, p. 247).
In Abstraction, de Kooning restricts his palette to black, white and warm earth tones. The imagery is both fractured and fractious, with many strange amorphous shapes all coexisting within a single plane. The black forms should recede, but instead, they rise to the foreground, only to sink backwards again, creating an ‘x-ray’ quality that de Kooning’s friend, the art historian Harry Gaugh, first identified. For John Elderfield, curator of de Kooning’s retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in 2011, the present painting held multiple associations: “Abstraction could be a street scene,” he explained, “with a figure crossing a square in the background and a ladder leaning against a wall, but the black shapes…float as if in an aquarium, with flashes of light cutting through the water” (J. Elderfield, op. cit., 2011, p. 171).
De Kooning had seen some of Jackson Pollock’s very first drip paintings in January of 1948, when they were exhibited at the Betty Parsons Gallery. Those paintings had also been painted in a predominately black-and-white palette. In turning away from his earlier, dream- and subconscious-inspired imagery, Pollock embraced pure abstraction. This also announced his seriousness as an artist, and may have prompted de Kooning to continue in a similar vein. So, too, did the abstracted, biomorphic imagery in de Kooning’s new work seemingly resemble Arshile Gorky’s paintings, which is all the more poignant considering that Gorky’s suicide happened later that summer.
Much of the ‘imagery’ in Abstraction may be familiar from paintings de Kooning made concurrently, including the ladder form, seen at upper right, and the window, seen at upper left. At this time, de Kooning still retained the traditional figure-ground relationship to some extent, so that a horizontal painting might still retain some semblance to landscape, and the deep recession into space often evokes an interior still life. De Kooning’s practice of placing tracing paper with forms copied from concurrent paintings is one he continued for most of his life. And here, the curvature of the body is “glimpsed” in several forms, which also seem to be severed into sharp, v-shaped points, especially in the upper register where collaged paper elements have been ripped from the surface.
De Kooning’s greatest abstract paintings offer a glimpse of recognizable imagery, yet nevertheless remain resolutely abstract. In this early mature phase of his work, de Kooning wanted the imagery to happen as an experience, “like an occurrence…an encounter,” he said. Indeed, "dissociated from their sources in nature, organic shapes are carriers of emotional charges...the memory of a friend may be aroused by a pair of gloves or a telephone number, an erotic memory by a curved line or an initial” (J. Elderfield, op. cit., 2011, p. 167). Truly, the enduring power and resonance of de Kooning's early abstractions is their capacity to be many things at once, which only reinforces the everlasting appeal of the great ‘slipping glimpser,’ as he called himself, of Abstract Expressionist art.
In the winter of 1947 and spring of 1948, de Kooning painted with confidence and gusto, creating a series of black-and-white paintings that have been described as “among the most beautiful works of the twentieth century” (M. Stevens & A. Swann, De Kooning: An American Master, New York, New York, 2005, p. 248). Whereas just a few years earlier he had been struggling for income and recognition, it was the Egan Gallery exhibit that was a turning-point in his career. Charles Egan, writing in a letter to MoMA curator Alfred H. Barr Jr., just before the exhibit opened, proclaimed that de Kooning “is creating the most important paintings of our time” (C. Egan, quoted in De Kooning: A Retrospective, exh. cat., Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2011, p. 124).
De Kooning’s use of commercial-grade enamel paints, purchased from a store on New York’s Bowery, allowed him the freedom of expression that he so desired in this new series. The enamels were slow-drying and had a slick, semi-glossy appearance, allowing him to work wet-on-wet and therefore acting as the perfect ground for his improvisatory brushwork. The areas where his brush was loaded with traditional oil paint, and happened to contact the slick enamel, resulted in skips and jumps of the brush that he enjoyed, and embraced throughout the present work. “Now that he was free of most colors, de Kooning became more spontaneous, almost drawing with his brush,” Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swann explained, writing in their biography of the artist. “The blackness itself began to seem like a glorious color; there was an element of rapture, an undeniable joy, in de Kooning’s confrontation… In the lush volcanic blacks he found a metaphysical grandeur….” (M. Stevens & A. Swann, op. cit., 2005, p. 247).
In Abstraction, de Kooning restricts his palette to black, white and warm earth tones. The imagery is both fractured and fractious, with many strange amorphous shapes all coexisting within a single plane. The black forms should recede, but instead, they rise to the foreground, only to sink backwards again, creating an ‘x-ray’ quality that de Kooning’s friend, the art historian Harry Gaugh, first identified. For John Elderfield, curator of de Kooning’s retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in 2011, the present painting held multiple associations: “Abstraction could be a street scene,” he explained, “with a figure crossing a square in the background and a ladder leaning against a wall, but the black shapes…float as if in an aquarium, with flashes of light cutting through the water” (J. Elderfield, op. cit., 2011, p. 171).
De Kooning had seen some of Jackson Pollock’s very first drip paintings in January of 1948, when they were exhibited at the Betty Parsons Gallery. Those paintings had also been painted in a predominately black-and-white palette. In turning away from his earlier, dream- and subconscious-inspired imagery, Pollock embraced pure abstraction. This also announced his seriousness as an artist, and may have prompted de Kooning to continue in a similar vein. So, too, did the abstracted, biomorphic imagery in de Kooning’s new work seemingly resemble Arshile Gorky’s paintings, which is all the more poignant considering that Gorky’s suicide happened later that summer.
Much of the ‘imagery’ in Abstraction may be familiar from paintings de Kooning made concurrently, including the ladder form, seen at upper right, and the window, seen at upper left. At this time, de Kooning still retained the traditional figure-ground relationship to some extent, so that a horizontal painting might still retain some semblance to landscape, and the deep recession into space often evokes an interior still life. De Kooning’s practice of placing tracing paper with forms copied from concurrent paintings is one he continued for most of his life. And here, the curvature of the body is “glimpsed” in several forms, which also seem to be severed into sharp, v-shaped points, especially in the upper register where collaged paper elements have been ripped from the surface.
De Kooning’s greatest abstract paintings offer a glimpse of recognizable imagery, yet nevertheless remain resolutely abstract. In this early mature phase of his work, de Kooning wanted the imagery to happen as an experience, “like an occurrence…an encounter,” he said. Indeed, "dissociated from their sources in nature, organic shapes are carriers of emotional charges...the memory of a friend may be aroused by a pair of gloves or a telephone number, an erotic memory by a curved line or an initial” (J. Elderfield, op. cit., 2011, p. 167). Truly, the enduring power and resonance of de Kooning's early abstractions is their capacity to be many things at once, which only reinforces the everlasting appeal of the great ‘slipping glimpser,’ as he called himself, of Abstract Expressionist art.