Lot Essay
In the late 1950s, Willem de Kooning became interested in the landscape as an inspiration and starting point for his painting, as he moved away from his famous Women series and began to re-explore a style of total abstraction.
The change in his painting was immediately apparent and was heralded by three series of closely linked paintings, the Urban landscapes, the Parkway landscapes and the Pastoral landscapes. Duck Pond is one of the Parkway landscapes. This group is characterized by some of the most muscular gestures in de Kooning's repertoire.
With a loaded brush and long, sweeping gestures, de Kooning suggested both broad, radiant vistas and fragments of a chilly landscape. He told Irving Sandler, '"I want to grab a piece of nature and make it look as real as it actually is"' (D. Sylvester, R. Schiff and M. Prather, Willem de Kooning: Paintings, Washington, D.C., 1994, p. 156).
The intense yellow, vibrant blue and earthy browns of Duck Pond's palette relate it to Suburb in Havana, also painted in 1958. Equally similar is the boldness of the artist's brushstrokes that were applied with broad housepainter's brushes. The increased scale of the strokes combined with the sense of urgency with which they were applied gives the picture a barely containable vitality. The colors suggest earth, sea, and sky, and confirm that de Kooning had shifted his attention from the congestion of the city to the expanse of eastern Long Island.
The change in his painting was immediately apparent and was heralded by three series of closely linked paintings, the Urban landscapes, the Parkway landscapes and the Pastoral landscapes. Duck Pond is one of the Parkway landscapes. This group is characterized by some of the most muscular gestures in de Kooning's repertoire.
With a loaded brush and long, sweeping gestures, de Kooning suggested both broad, radiant vistas and fragments of a chilly landscape. He told Irving Sandler, '"I want to grab a piece of nature and make it look as real as it actually is"' (D. Sylvester, R. Schiff and M. Prather, Willem de Kooning: Paintings, Washington, D.C., 1994, p. 156).
The intense yellow, vibrant blue and earthy browns of Duck Pond's palette relate it to Suburb in Havana, also painted in 1958. Equally similar is the boldness of the artist's brushstrokes that were applied with broad housepainter's brushes. The increased scale of the strokes combined with the sense of urgency with which they were applied gives the picture a barely containable vitality. The colors suggest earth, sea, and sky, and confirm that de Kooning had shifted his attention from the congestion of the city to the expanse of eastern Long Island.