Woman I gives me a chill whenever I see it, but the context of MoMA’s current de Kooning retrospective made me feel as though I were seeing it again for the first time.
I loved everything about this show, from the clear breakdown of eras to the spare wall-text and dramatic hanging of Excavation, the artist’s culmination of his breakthrough into abstraction, to the heart-stopping full-arm room with Merritt Parkway, Bolton Landing, and other immense canvases beaming at one another in a way that would shut up almost anyone who claims he could do that himself.
I’ve been hearing that writers are again looking back to modernism. One look at the “Six Stages of Woman One” (photographs by Rudy Burkhart) should help this out.
There were a few paintings that I’d only seen once or twice before (Secretary, for example, at the Hirshhorn in D.C.), which admittedly made less of an impression on me that first time. When you see a whole bunch of de Kooning’s work together, they crackle like nothing else. The second Woman series and the Abstract Parkway Landscapes might trigger the strongest emotional response, but I adore the earlier, smaller 1940s abstract pieces for their succinctness and clarity. Zurich, Orestes, Black Friday, etc. I like to call them the hieroglyph paintings.
Orestes, Willem de Kooning, 1947 paper collage with enamel paint on board, ca. 24 x 36 in
The catalogue arrived last week and I’ve read through most of it. Elderfield’s writing is great, though I find myself wishing for less forensic evidence of the paintings’ evolution (infrared photographs show underdrawing; cross-sections show…, etc.), and more reactions from peers, friends, etc to the various version as they were seen in the studio. Dore Ashton might have this in New York School; I’ll have to go back to it. I also have to send for a new copy of the catalogue because the case split immediately from the binding, which probably wasn’t my fault because I know how to open a book.