Elaine de Kooning: A Fusion of Ideas

Elaine de Kooning - Self-Portrait #3 - 1946 - Oil on masonite - 75.6 x 57.5cm (29 3/4 x 22 5/8”) - National Portrait Gallery - Washington, D.C. (click photo for larger image)Elaine de Kooning (1918-1989) was a prolific artist, art critic, portraitist, and teacher during the height of the Abstract Expressionists era and well beyond. Much of her art fused abstraction with mythology, primitive imagery, and realism. Her work continues to receive increasing critical attention as she was, without question, also one of the most important artists, writers, and teachers to have worked in the 20th century. She was particularly noted for her witty, perceptive analyses of a wide range of art.

While Elaine did use gestural brushstrokes in most of her work, much in the tradition of the "action" painters, her work was figurative and representational, to some degree, and thus rarely as purely abstract as some of her closest contemporaries.

In the mid 1940s, Elaine and her husband, Willem de Kooning, were poorer than ever, and both were experiencing great difficulty in selling any work. In an effort to make money, Elaine painted the realist self-portrait featured here, and sold it to her sister for a sum of $20. She described it, at the time, as "good money." The pseudo-abstract touches in this otherwise classical portrait are very much in the style of artist Fairfield Porter, who was a close friend of the de Koonings, and whose portrait Elaine also painted.

Ad Reinhardt: Purifying Painting

Ad Reinhardt - One Year the Milkweed - 1944 - Oil on canvas - 94.2 x 119.3 cm (37 1/16 x 46 15/16 in.) - National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.Ad Reinhardt (1913-1967) was an abstract painter active in New York beginning in the 1930s and continuing through the 1960s. He was a member of the American Abstract Artists and was a part of the movement centered on the Betty Parsons Gallery that became known as abstract expressionism.

Although commonly associated with the Abstract Expressionists, his work had its origins in geometric abstraction, a rarity for an American artist. He increasingly sought to purify his painting of everything he saw as extraneous to art, and he rejected the movement's expressionism. Although Reinhardt was, in turn, rejected by many of his peers, he was later hailed as a prophet by Minimalists.

Arshile Gorky: A Unique Approach to Color and Form

Arshile Gorky - Portrait of Master Bill - 1929-36 Oil on canvas - Private Collection (click photo for larger image)Arshile Gorky (1904-1948) was an Armenian-American painter, who had a seminal influence on Abstract Expressionism. He spent most his life as a national of the United States. Along with Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning, Gorky has been hailed as one of the most powerful American painters of the 20th century. 

Gorky put the biomorphic  forms of the Surrealists through the process of emphasizing more lyrical color and personal content. He developed a unique approach to color and form. His work reflects both his past and the cultural and historical milieu of New York in the 1940s.

Robert Motherwell: Stream of Consciousness—in Paint

Robert Motherwell - Ulysses - 1947 - Oil paint on cardboard, on wood - 38 x 32 inches - Tate Modern, London (click photo for larger image)American Abstract Expressionist Robert Motherwell (1915-1991) was among the first American artists to cultivate accidental elements in his work. His decision to become a serious artist came in 1941—and he embraced several different styles during the course of his career.

“Possessing perhaps the best and most extensive formal education of all the New York School painters, Robert Motherwell was well versed in literature, philosophy and the European modernist traditions. His paintings, prints and collages feature simple shapes, bold color contrasts and a dynamic balance between restrained and boldly gestural brushstrokes. They reflect not only a dialogue with art history, philosophy and contemporary art, but also a sincere and considered engagement with autobiographical content, contemporary events and the essential human conditions of life, death, oppression and revolution.”

Motherwell was also a successful and well-known teacher and writer. He taught art at Hunter College from 1951—58, and again from 1971-72. He directed the publication of the series “The Documents of Modern Art” (1944–52), and he wrote numerous essays on art and aesthetics. Motherwell was generally regarded as the most articulate spokesman for Abstract Expressionism.

The work featured here is named after James Joyce's famous modernist novel Ulysses (1922) which Motherwell first read while traveling though Europe in 1935. Joyce's style of writing, in particular his use of stream of consciousness, had a profound effect on Motherwell, who believed that art should be an expression of the innermost thoughts and feelings of the artist.

Elaine de Kooning: Making It Happen

Elaine de Kooning - Juarez - 1958 - Oil on masonite - 35 3/4 x 47 7/8 inches (90.8 x 121.6 cm) - Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, NY (click photo for larger image)American Abstract Expressionist Elaine de Kooning (1918-1989) was a prolific artist, art critic, portraitist, and teacher. Although her early career was overshadowed by that of Willem de Kooning, her husband, Elaine's artistic range, vast knowledge of media, and influence on fellow artists was profound. Her success as an art critic largely contributed to a broader recognition and understanding of Abstract Expressionism—and its value.

Many of de Kooning’s so-called “pure” abstract paintings were produced during the 1950s. However, much of her later art fused abstraction with mythology, primitive imagery, and realism. A world traveler, she was exposed to and inspired by a wide variety of art that helped make her one of the more diverse artists among her colleagues.

Elaine de Kooning's work continues to receive increasing critical attention as she was, without question, one of the most important figures of the postmodern era—and beyond. You can read more about Elaine de Kooning right here on What About Art?.