Willem de Kooning is regarded as a leading exponent of Abstract Expressionism and celebrated in the U.S. as one of the most significant figures in twentieth-century painting. Yet in Europe, the artist (1904-1997) has yet to be fully recognized as the important figure he was. That applies in particular to his work of the sixties and seventies, his years of retreat from urban life to live and work on Long Island. This part of his oeuvre bears the imprint of a fundamental experience of landscape, and it is here that he developed a style of figuration (which de Kooning never really abandoned) characterized by a new sense of color and energetic gesture.
This period of vigorous, pioneering creativity in the art of Willem de Kooning is explicitly illuminated for the first time in this book. Featuring a concentrated selection of painting in large formats, it shows how his works-although recognizable as landscapes-grew abstract under the influence of his intense experience of nature while his brushwork literally liberated itself from all bonds.
Exhibition schedule: Kunstmuseum Basel, Museum für Gegenwartskunst, September 17, 2005-January 22, 2006
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