The Spirit of Abstract Expressionism: Selected Writings

Includes 29 critical essays, most published in ArtNews 1949-1989, and previously unpublished selections from journals and letters

Artist, critic and wife of painter Willem de Kooning, Elaine de Kooning (1918-1989) was both the interpreter and the voice of the Abstract Expressionist movement. Published primarily in Art News between 1949 and 1967, these 28 articles display her acumen and impassioned commitment. Included are a wonderfully personal biographical-critical profile of Arshile Gorky, an analysis of the alchemy of Franz Kline's paintings and perceptive appraisals of artists as diverse as Andrew Wyeth, Stuart Davis, Jackson Pollock and Esteban Vicente. An eloquent 1955 essay on how an artist chooses, or is chosen by, his or her subject seems just as relevant today as when it was written. Slivka, who teaches art criticism at New York University, examines de Kooning's underrated career as a painter, and Luyckx, the artist's sister, provides an affectionate profile. Photos.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

De Kooning (1918-89) was a painter herself, and, in the essays here, she describes art the way artists experience it--the messy, hands-on, tactile experience of painting. De Kooning wrote for Art News in the 1950's, and amid today's jargon, theory, and various deconstructions, her essays--swift, taut, personal and to the point--are a delight to read as she, say, watches Arshile Gorky painstakingly build up a layered surface or David Smith puzzle out a devilishly complex bit of metalwork. De Kooning knew the great figures of the New York school--her husband Willem, Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline--at firsthand from the early 40's, when they were not yet celebrities, and to her they're friends and acquaintances in low-rent studios, simply doing the work they do. With skepticism but also with love, she sifts through their self-created legends with a refreshing honesty after the hyperbole of gossip bios and the posthumous lawsuits, etc., that have surrounded the ``giants'' of the period. De Kooning's irreverent contemporary portraits restore the human scale, leaving out the machismo and the booze. The writer isn't doctrinaire, either, about the purity or primacy of abstract painting, but is perfectly willing, for example, to deflate the extremist pretensions of an Ad Reinhart in ``Pure Paints a Picture'' (1957). In the clairvoyant ``Subject, What, How or Who'' (1955), she explains how abstract and representational turn into one another; in ``Parody is King,'' she heralds a development on the art scene that was to choke out much else later on. She champions forgotten painter Edwin Dickinson; even Andrew Wyeth gets his due. Essays that are alive in new ways as they help us look back. Perhaps only an artist could write about other artists with such genuine curiosity and open-mindedness. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Lee Hall's revelatory Elaine and Bill: Portrait of a Marriage: The Lives of Willem and Elaine de Kooning drew Elaine de Kooning out from the shadow of her more famous spouse and reintroduced her as one of those rare creatures, a talented painter who wrote beautifully about painting. Now this selection of her critical essays not only displays de Kooning's literary finesse and critical acumen but also provides researchers with some key articulations of the aesthetics of abstract expressionism. These 28 pieces--introduced by de Kooning's sister, Marjorie Luyckx, who is editing de Kooning's memoirs and journals, and art critic Rose Slivka--span the dynamic years of 1949 through 1985 and discuss the work of such masters as Arshile Gorky, Hans Hofmann, Franz Kline, Stuart Davis, Jackson Pollock, and, naturally, Willem de Kooning. In each of her essays, de Kooning moves fleetly from vivid visual descriptions to insightful interpretations of the artist's personality, methodology, and themes. Somehow, she manages to maintain an engaging, objective, and reportorial voice while, at the same time, revealing her profound involvement with her subject. Donna Seaman

Elaine de Kooning (1918-89), artist, art critic, educator, and wife of the prominent abstract expressionist painter Willem de Kooning, receives appropriate recognition in this collection of 28 critical essays, mostly from Art News and previously unpublished sources. Granted access to the studios of her friends and colleagues--Franz Kline, Arshile Gorky, Mark Rothko, David Smith, Buckminster Fuller, and other notables--she provides firsthand observations of their distinctive techniques and temperaments. Her perceptive, witty articles include accounts of her experiences at the innovative Black Mountain College, a commission to paint President Kennedy's portrait, and her husband's influences upon her work. Noteworthy introductions by the author's sister and an associate reveal the personal side of the woman who so intelligently articulated the abstract expressionist movement's ideals. A necessary purchase for contemporary art collections.
- Joan Levin, MLS, Chicago
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.