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Lot Essay
Centered on a new image of American woman, Women Singing I is an extraordinary, vibrant and visceral display of Willem de Kooning's late series of 'Women,' which he began in 1964. Forged by the changing culture of the 1960s, de Kooning drew inspiration from a variety of sources in the popular media which was fixated on the new women's fashions of the bikini and the mini-skirt. The new American girl icons of de Kooning's art were pop-singers, go-go dancers, cheer leaders and Playboy models. Drawn from mass-media images of a youth culture that was then, for the first time, coming to dominate all aspects of American life, de Kooning found himself, almost unconsciously, once more engaging with the perennial theme of his art: the alluring, but also terrifying sensual and sexual monster: 'Woman'.
"I can't get away from the Woman. Wherever I look, I find her" de Kooning said at this time, reflecting the fact that in many ways the new women of these works had actually emerged from a conscious attempt to break out of his old habits and find new means of expression and inspiration. (de Kooning quoted in M. Stevens and A. Swan, De Kooning: An American Master, New York 2005, p. 475). These paintings of the new young American girl however, as de Kooning also repeatedly pointed out, reflected a completely different mood - one that, he said, showed that ultimately, he'd "beaten the monsters". (de Kooning quoted in Willem de Kooning, exh. cat. Washington D.C., 1994, p. 180).
Women Singing I depicts two blonde women standing in skimpy dresses singing, their large mouths and downcast eyes a humorous parody of concentrated noise. The painting is one of three large works executed in oil on paper that were first exhibited together at de Kooning's important exhibition of his recent work at M.C. Knoedler and Co in New York in 1967. The other two paintings in this series were Singing Women in the Stedelijk Museum and Women Singing II in the Tate Gallery. Each of these three works functions as a kind of sensual and physical response on the part of the artist and through the plastic medium of paint to the visual and erotic stimuli of these young singing females. The paint's physicality and the way in which it has been applied, the color and the gestural splash and play of this tactile and, in de Kooning's hands, seemingly infinitely pliable medium, powerfully evoke the artist's own sensual and sexually-charged response to the women, their bodies, alluring dress, hair and make-up. The figures are, in this sense, androgynous fusions of de Kooning's sensual play with material, his desire and the sources or objects of such desire.
"I can't get away from the Woman. Wherever I look, I find her" de Kooning said at this time, reflecting the fact that in many ways the new women of these works had actually emerged from a conscious attempt to break out of his old habits and find new means of expression and inspiration. (de Kooning quoted in M. Stevens and A. Swan, De Kooning: An American Master, New York 2005, p. 475). These paintings of the new young American girl however, as de Kooning also repeatedly pointed out, reflected a completely different mood - one that, he said, showed that ultimately, he'd "beaten the monsters". (de Kooning quoted in Willem de Kooning, exh. cat. Washington D.C., 1994, p. 180).
Women Singing I depicts two blonde women standing in skimpy dresses singing, their large mouths and downcast eyes a humorous parody of concentrated noise. The painting is one of three large works executed in oil on paper that were first exhibited together at de Kooning's important exhibition of his recent work at M.C. Knoedler and Co in New York in 1967. The other two paintings in this series were Singing Women in the Stedelijk Museum and Women Singing II in the Tate Gallery. Each of these three works functions as a kind of sensual and physical response on the part of the artist and through the plastic medium of paint to the visual and erotic stimuli of these young singing females. The paint's physicality and the way in which it has been applied, the color and the gestural splash and play of this tactile and, in de Kooning's hands, seemingly infinitely pliable medium, powerfully evoke the artist's own sensual and sexually-charged response to the women, their bodies, alluring dress, hair and make-up. The figures are, in this sense, androgynous fusions of de Kooning's sensual play with material, his desire and the sources or objects of such desire.