Getting Ready for the Willem de Kooning Show

From September 18, 2011–January 9, 2012, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City (MOMA) will present a major exhibition that will cover the full career of Willem de Kooning, an artist thought by many to be one of the greatest and most productive artists of the 20th century. The exhibition with its more than 200 works will take over the entire sixth floor of the museum. Including paintings, drawings, sculptures, and prints, the exhibition will allow a look at some of the artist’s most famous landmark pieces and a view of de Kooning’s development and change over seven decades. Visit http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/1149 for more information (click here to get to that site).

A wonderful way to prepare for a visit to this exhibition is to take a look at the very competent biography of de Kooning:

Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan, de Kooning: An American Master. 2004. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

The book offers wonderful depictions of the artist at work in his studios that will only enhance the viewing of the works he produced in those studios.

Without reducing one to the other, the authors effectively make the point that de Kooning’s life is his work and that de Kooning’s work is his life. Also, in their very careful look at de Kooning, the most individualistic of painters, the authors bring to life an entire society and culture. We learn not only about de Kooning, but also about the key people in his life; other important figures; the cities and other places that he inhabited; and the important artistic, intellectual, and political trends of the time.

The final chapters of this big book that cover de Kooning’s final work about which there was much debate are fascinating. They display of the mix of people and the mix of motivations involved in the production of these late paintings and show us the inadequacy of many of the questions we ask about art and life. The authors successfully complicate how we think about art its authenticity.