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Lot Essay
Overflowing with luminosity, Willem de Kooning’s Untitled from 1982 is a masterful abstraction that coalesces decades of style into a singular painterly retrospective. Echos of the Abstract Expressionist master’s brushy figuration from the 1950s peer through fleshy pastel colors reminiscent of his 1960s grand gestural abstractions, whilst ribbons of purple and blue form a bridge between the effervescent canvases of the late 1970s and the leaner “ribbon paintings” that would emerge a few years later.
The period between 1980 and 1983 marks an immensely reverent time in the artist’s life where he reflected on the painter he once was and who he was to become in his great age. “Instead of just looking back in reverie to his past, as happens so frequently in old age,” Klaus Kertess has explained of the period coined “the last beginning,” adding that “he transformed looking back into looking forward” (K. Kertess, “Further Reflection,” in Willem de Kooning: The Last Beginning, exh. cat., New York, Gagosian Gallery, 2007, p. 18).
Opening his studio to the world, the artist—who had only recently returned to painting after a fallow artistic period—invited a new audience to witness this final transformation. The creation of Untitled took center stage on the pages of Architectural Digest and in the 1982 documentary film Strokes of Genius: de Kooning on de Kooning. Pushing, pulling, scraping, and brushing, the creative force behind de Kooning’s new works—though relatively limited in number—was met with critical acclaim. “I was particularly impressed by your late work reproduced in your studio settings in Architectural Digest and in Art News,” the legendary dealer Sidney Janis wrote to the artist. “There is a lyricism evident in your new paintings which I might have previously missed and which I find most stimulating and exciting” (S. Janis quoted in J. Elderfield, de Kooning: A Retrospective, exh. cat., New York, 2011, p. 443). Janis’s words were testament to the vigor of the 78-year-old artist who would go on to create some of his greatest paintings during the final chapter of his life.
More than a work of sublime sensuality, this luminous 1982 canvas is also a triumphant manifestation of the artist’s will to overcome a period of immense personal and creative struggle. Painted during a time of newfound stability and artistic innovation, Untitled signals the dawning of a significant new phase in its creator’s oeuvre. For de Kooning, the 1970s had been marred with bouts of severe alcohol and depression, which seemed to come to a head in 1978. In the wake of the sudden deaths of two dear friends and critical supporters, Harold Rosenberg and Thomas Hess, de Kooning halted creation of the vibrant, watery, allover abstractions that had occupied him between 1975-77, citing that they'd become too predictable.
Whilst de Kooning was no stranger to change, this time proved especially difficult for the artist as his drinking and mental state worsened. His creative production also plummeted, indicating that the cure was neither easy nor immediate. De Kooning was notorious for allowing few works’ survival under his harsh standards, and of the paintings that were made between 1979 and 1980 only a small number were kept. As his studio assistant at the time, Tom Ferrara, later emphasized, “It was a real event if he painted” (T. Ferrara, quoted in De Kooning: a Retrospective, exh. cat., New York, 2011, p. 442).
Yet, by 1980 de Kooning had successfully stopped drinking. The artist’s wife Elaine—with whom he had been estranged for years—had moved back to East Hampton and resumed contact with him, bringing some order to his life. Against all expectations, in 1981, de Kooning returned to the canvas. Reflecting on his past, whilst coming to terms with the present, de Kooning looked to the late work of his predecessors as he prepared for his final great painterly cycle.
From 1980 to 1983, de Kooning began to employ technical and formal changes that would come to characterize his late style. During this period, he would often sand down his rejected paintings from the 1970s, allowing the ghostlike impressions of previous compositions to serve as the support for his new output. Warned by a conservator about the volatility of his favorite paint mix, containing water and safflower oil, de Kooning started using a more conventional mixing medium. While his earlier paint mix was much more viscous, this new, thinner blend allowed him to apply greater fluidity to his compositions. He also started working with a taper’s knife—the flat bladed tool used in drywall construction—to stretch out the paint across the canvas with fluid, generous movements, achieving an almost calligraphic effect.
Instead of pre-mixing the paint with the medium in a bowl, as he had done through the 1970s, the artist would begin to squeeze the paint directly onto a huge glass-topped table, picking it up in large daubs with a brush imbued in varnish, oil and turpentine, effectively mixing paint and medium directly on the canvas, as the brushstroke progressed on the surface. These new techniques helped de Kooning to free his works from the thick, buttery surfaces of his earlier works. It also allowed for a freeing up of the composition, for previously separated elements of figuration and abstraction to coexist successfully with within the same flat picture plane, evoking Picasso’s earliest figures embedded in landscapes. In similar fashion to Jackson Pollock's flowing compositions, in Untitled, the paint retains the fluidity and sensuousness of de Kooning’s characteristic touch, yet the painterly movement appears endowed with an unexpected lightness, a seductive transparency which lends a sense of real freedom to the work.
Inaugurating a significant new phase in de Kooning’s painting practice, Untitled charts a change of direction in the artist’s intentions. This new development was spurred, in part, by his rediscovery of Henri Matisse. In 1980, the artist observed, “Lately I’ve been thinking that it would be nice to be influenced by Matisse. I mean, he’s so lighthearted. I have a book about how he was old and he cut out colored patterns and he made it so joyous. I would like to do that, too—not like him, but joyous, more or less” (W. de Kooning, quoted by M. Stevens & A. Swan, de Kooning: An American Master, New York, 2004, p. 589). The supple, exuberant lines of the modern master’s late cut-outs such as Blue Nude II (1952, Musée National d'Art Moderne) evoked the idea of youthful play, engaged at a moment of physical decline.
De Kooning’s canvases of the early 1980s present a fluid surface on which colors move freely, pulling their lightness from its glowing pastels. Age, it seems, had brought de Kooning a new pictorial wisdom. Joan Levy, a painter friend of de Kooning’s daughter Lisa, would later recall a conversation with the artist “When he started doing those paintings of the eighties, the light was pouring out. He said, ‘What do you think?’ I said, ‘They’re so ethereal. It looks like you died and went to heaven’. De Kooning agreed: ‘Yes, that is what I was going for’” (W. de Kooning, quoted by M. Stevens & A. Swan, op. cit., p. 591).
The period between 1980 and 1983 marks an immensely reverent time in the artist’s life where he reflected on the painter he once was and who he was to become in his great age. “Instead of just looking back in reverie to his past, as happens so frequently in old age,” Klaus Kertess has explained of the period coined “the last beginning,” adding that “he transformed looking back into looking forward” (K. Kertess, “Further Reflection,” in Willem de Kooning: The Last Beginning, exh. cat., New York, Gagosian Gallery, 2007, p. 18).
Opening his studio to the world, the artist—who had only recently returned to painting after a fallow artistic period—invited a new audience to witness this final transformation. The creation of Untitled took center stage on the pages of Architectural Digest and in the 1982 documentary film Strokes of Genius: de Kooning on de Kooning. Pushing, pulling, scraping, and brushing, the creative force behind de Kooning’s new works—though relatively limited in number—was met with critical acclaim. “I was particularly impressed by your late work reproduced in your studio settings in Architectural Digest and in Art News,” the legendary dealer Sidney Janis wrote to the artist. “There is a lyricism evident in your new paintings which I might have previously missed and which I find most stimulating and exciting” (S. Janis quoted in J. Elderfield, de Kooning: A Retrospective, exh. cat., New York, 2011, p. 443). Janis’s words were testament to the vigor of the 78-year-old artist who would go on to create some of his greatest paintings during the final chapter of his life.
More than a work of sublime sensuality, this luminous 1982 canvas is also a triumphant manifestation of the artist’s will to overcome a period of immense personal and creative struggle. Painted during a time of newfound stability and artistic innovation, Untitled signals the dawning of a significant new phase in its creator’s oeuvre. For de Kooning, the 1970s had been marred with bouts of severe alcohol and depression, which seemed to come to a head in 1978. In the wake of the sudden deaths of two dear friends and critical supporters, Harold Rosenberg and Thomas Hess, de Kooning halted creation of the vibrant, watery, allover abstractions that had occupied him between 1975-77, citing that they'd become too predictable.
Whilst de Kooning was no stranger to change, this time proved especially difficult for the artist as his drinking and mental state worsened. His creative production also plummeted, indicating that the cure was neither easy nor immediate. De Kooning was notorious for allowing few works’ survival under his harsh standards, and of the paintings that were made between 1979 and 1980 only a small number were kept. As his studio assistant at the time, Tom Ferrara, later emphasized, “It was a real event if he painted” (T. Ferrara, quoted in De Kooning: a Retrospective, exh. cat., New York, 2011, p. 442).
Yet, by 1980 de Kooning had successfully stopped drinking. The artist’s wife Elaine—with whom he had been estranged for years—had moved back to East Hampton and resumed contact with him, bringing some order to his life. Against all expectations, in 1981, de Kooning returned to the canvas. Reflecting on his past, whilst coming to terms with the present, de Kooning looked to the late work of his predecessors as he prepared for his final great painterly cycle.
From 1980 to 1983, de Kooning began to employ technical and formal changes that would come to characterize his late style. During this period, he would often sand down his rejected paintings from the 1970s, allowing the ghostlike impressions of previous compositions to serve as the support for his new output. Warned by a conservator about the volatility of his favorite paint mix, containing water and safflower oil, de Kooning started using a more conventional mixing medium. While his earlier paint mix was much more viscous, this new, thinner blend allowed him to apply greater fluidity to his compositions. He also started working with a taper’s knife—the flat bladed tool used in drywall construction—to stretch out the paint across the canvas with fluid, generous movements, achieving an almost calligraphic effect.
Instead of pre-mixing the paint with the medium in a bowl, as he had done through the 1970s, the artist would begin to squeeze the paint directly onto a huge glass-topped table, picking it up in large daubs with a brush imbued in varnish, oil and turpentine, effectively mixing paint and medium directly on the canvas, as the brushstroke progressed on the surface. These new techniques helped de Kooning to free his works from the thick, buttery surfaces of his earlier works. It also allowed for a freeing up of the composition, for previously separated elements of figuration and abstraction to coexist successfully with within the same flat picture plane, evoking Picasso’s earliest figures embedded in landscapes. In similar fashion to Jackson Pollock's flowing compositions, in Untitled, the paint retains the fluidity and sensuousness of de Kooning’s characteristic touch, yet the painterly movement appears endowed with an unexpected lightness, a seductive transparency which lends a sense of real freedom to the work.
Inaugurating a significant new phase in de Kooning’s painting practice, Untitled charts a change of direction in the artist’s intentions. This new development was spurred, in part, by his rediscovery of Henri Matisse. In 1980, the artist observed, “Lately I’ve been thinking that it would be nice to be influenced by Matisse. I mean, he’s so lighthearted. I have a book about how he was old and he cut out colored patterns and he made it so joyous. I would like to do that, too—not like him, but joyous, more or less” (W. de Kooning, quoted by M. Stevens & A. Swan, de Kooning: An American Master, New York, 2004, p. 589). The supple, exuberant lines of the modern master’s late cut-outs such as Blue Nude II (1952, Musée National d'Art Moderne) evoked the idea of youthful play, engaged at a moment of physical decline.
De Kooning’s canvases of the early 1980s present a fluid surface on which colors move freely, pulling their lightness from its glowing pastels. Age, it seems, had brought de Kooning a new pictorial wisdom. Joan Levy, a painter friend of de Kooning’s daughter Lisa, would later recall a conversation with the artist “When he started doing those paintings of the eighties, the light was pouring out. He said, ‘What do you think?’ I said, ‘They’re so ethereal. It looks like you died and went to heaven’. De Kooning agreed: ‘Yes, that is what I was going for’” (W. de Kooning, quoted by M. Stevens & A. Swan, op. cit., p. 591).