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拍品專文
In 1961, Willem de Kooning moved from New York City to East Hampton, a shift that would profoundly change the artist's style. Relocating from the cramped, gritty metropolis to the tranquil coastal town, de Kooning left behind the violent, frenzied Women of the 1950s and developed a new style characterized by a freer drawing line and a synthesis of the figure and its surroundings.
Untitled is a strong example of the change in the artist's style brought about by the open space and sweeping light of the beach landscape. In these works from the 1960s, de Kooning integrates the figures with the landscape and shows them almost floating in their surroundings. "The female figure, although still the theme of the painting no longer dominates its composition. By the late 1960s de Kooning makes Woman a landscape" (D. Waldman, Willem De Kooning in East Hampton, New York, 1978, p.25). In the present painting, the artist depicts Woman in this way, abstracted and enveloped by the background, so much so that the viewer might overlook the figure at first glance. But a longer gaze reveals a woman alternately receding into and floating on top of the colorful backdrop, or as a figure forming an integral part of the landscape.
The pose of the woman in this painting, with legs splayed and arms outstretched, also expresses the freedom and levity of bathers on the shore. Figuring prominently in the artist's painting and sculpture of the 1960s, the pose is the same found in a photograph that de Kooning was known to have adored of two cheerleaders leaping into the air (fig. 1). The artist may have been fascinated with the way depth perception is circumscribed and how the figures appear groundless. Indeed, the photograph captures the artist's personal sense of liberation in the country and elucidates the artist's movement toward integration of the figure with the background in the present painting.
(fig. 1) Lord Harlech's daughters, London Daily Express, 1965. Courtesy Archive Photos, New York.
Untitled is a strong example of the change in the artist's style brought about by the open space and sweeping light of the beach landscape. In these works from the 1960s, de Kooning integrates the figures with the landscape and shows them almost floating in their surroundings. "The female figure, although still the theme of the painting no longer dominates its composition. By the late 1960s de Kooning makes Woman a landscape" (D. Waldman, Willem De Kooning in East Hampton, New York, 1978, p.25). In the present painting, the artist depicts Woman in this way, abstracted and enveloped by the background, so much so that the viewer might overlook the figure at first glance. But a longer gaze reveals a woman alternately receding into and floating on top of the colorful backdrop, or as a figure forming an integral part of the landscape.
The pose of the woman in this painting, with legs splayed and arms outstretched, also expresses the freedom and levity of bathers on the shore. Figuring prominently in the artist's painting and sculpture of the 1960s, the pose is the same found in a photograph that de Kooning was known to have adored of two cheerleaders leaping into the air (fig. 1). The artist may have been fascinated with the way depth perception is circumscribed and how the figures appear groundless. Indeed, the photograph captures the artist's personal sense of liberation in the country and elucidates the artist's movement toward integration of the figure with the background in the present painting.
(fig. 1) Lord Harlech's daughters, London Daily Express, 1965. Courtesy Archive Photos, New York.