Willem de Kooning

Women

Willem de Kooning has become synonymous with a post–World War II art movement known as Abstract Expressionism. As the world attempted to put itself together after the war, so did artists like de Kooning, who felt disillusioned and damaged by the events that transpired. De Kooning's work expresses the ugly reality of that new world.

A leading artist among the Abstract Expressionists, Willem de Kooning never believed that abstraction and representation were mutually exclusive. As he stated: “I’m not interested in ‘abstracting’ or taking things out or reducing painting to design, form, line, and color. I paint this way because I can keep putting more things in it–drama, anger, pain, love, a figure, a horse, my ideas about space. Through your eyes it again becomes an emotion or idea.” Woman and Bicycle, one of a series of…

Paintings from the late 1950s and on prove that de Kooning had sat at the feet of, and learnt much from, such old Italian masters as Titian and Tintoretto.

Willem de Kooning. A Tree in Naples. 1960. Oil on canvas. 6' 8 1/4" x 70 1/8" (203.7 x 178.1 cm). The Sidney and Harriet Janis Collection. 622.1967. © 2024 The Willem de Kooning Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Painting and Sculpture

Willem de Kooning. Valentine. 1947. Oil and enamel on paper on board. 36 3/8 x 24 1/4" (92.2 x 61.5 cm). Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Gifford Phillips. 1093.1969. © 2024 The Willem de Kooning Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Drawings and Prints

Artwork by Willem de Kooning | The Susan Sheehan Gallery has specialized in Post-War American prints and works on paper since 1985. The gallery is an active member of the Art Dealers Association of America and International Fine Print Dealers Association.

De Kooning in his studio, with a bottle of safflower oil and bowls of paint on his worktable, 1971. Photo Dan Budnik.

The Whitney’s Collection: Selections from 1900 to 1965

Woman in the Garden I