Author Description

Overview: Willem de Kooning is celebrated in the United States as one of the most significant artists of the 20th century and a leading Abstract Expressionist. In Europe, however, the artist has yet to be fully recognized, particularly with regards to his work of the 1960s and 1970s, when he retreated from urban life to live and work on Long Island. This segment of de Kooning's oeuvre bears the imprint of a fundamental experience of the landscape, for it was in these Long Island works that he developed a new style of figuration, characterized by a transformed sense of color and energetic gesture. This period of vigorous, pioneering creativity is illuminated for the first time in this volume, which features a concentrated selection of large-format paintings. In images and essays by Klaus Kertess, Harold Rosenberg, and others, the book illustrates how de Kooning's paintings--although recognizable as landscapes--grew abstract under the influence of his intense experience of nature.