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Lot Essay
As its title indicates, Monumental Woman is one of the largest works on paper representing the artist's signature subject matter. The figure's form fills the paper almost completely, intensifying her already imposing her presence. The strokes which structure her body activate the paper's surface through their gestural potency, and, at the same time, de Kooning's articulation, or complete omission, of individual features like her left eye, reinforces this dynamism through striking asymmetry.
The present work is an outstanding example of the artist's mastery of the charcoal medium, one in which he undertook extensive experimentation in the early 1950s. As Paul Cummings noted about de Kooning's drawings of this period, the artist's "line in these few years underwent its greatest changes. This is recognized in the increasing velocity of application, the varying graphic weights achieved by the reiteration of the gesture in building the reinforced line, and his innovative use of the eraser as a stylus of light. This tool becomes a coequal aid to the darker mark-making pencil or charcoal. Through the use of the eraser he manipulates the line by changing the immediacy of its original autographic statement. The once dark marks are often reduced to a delicate tone, thereby opening the spatial aspects of the design. The lines, which fall unhesitatingly from the charcoal stick, unify the surface and affirm the sensation of freshness" (P. Cummings, "The Drawings of Willem de Kooning," in Willem De Kooning, exh. cat., New York, 1983, p. 17). This innovative technique is especially evident in areas where the eraser was heavily employed to describe the three dimensionality of anatomical forms, particularly in the figure's curvaceous thighs and fully-fleshed waist.
For all its stylistic interest and technical facility, the present work is additionally both a document of dear friendship and a registration of artistic play, a clever composition in which the age-old trope of woman as landscape gains a new, and exceedingly inventive, iteration. As Thomas Hess has explained, the genesis of this drawing reveals the artist' inventive fusion of his artistic project with his personal experiences:
"In 1953, de Kooning had a small retrospective exhibition in Washington, D.C., and while being driven around the capital he was impressed and amused by the Federal architecture-the miles of columns and domes. Back in his New York studio, he made a witty amalgam of his vision of the city with Woman. Her nose is the Washington Monument. Her left breast is the Jefferson Memorial. He said as much. . . Monumental Woman is not a mere wedding cake jeu d'esprit; it is one of his most powerful and haunting images." (T. B. Hess, Willem de Kooning Drawings, Greenwich, 1972, p. 45).
According to Hess, this drawing was executed in 1953 and presented to Harold Rosenberg on his birthday in 1954; it was dated at the time of the gift.
(fig. 1) De Kooning in his studio, 1950. Photograph copyright c 2000 Rudolph Burckhardt.
The present work is an outstanding example of the artist's mastery of the charcoal medium, one in which he undertook extensive experimentation in the early 1950s. As Paul Cummings noted about de Kooning's drawings of this period, the artist's "line in these few years underwent its greatest changes. This is recognized in the increasing velocity of application, the varying graphic weights achieved by the reiteration of the gesture in building the reinforced line, and his innovative use of the eraser as a stylus of light. This tool becomes a coequal aid to the darker mark-making pencil or charcoal. Through the use of the eraser he manipulates the line by changing the immediacy of its original autographic statement. The once dark marks are often reduced to a delicate tone, thereby opening the spatial aspects of the design. The lines, which fall unhesitatingly from the charcoal stick, unify the surface and affirm the sensation of freshness" (P. Cummings, "The Drawings of Willem de Kooning," in Willem De Kooning, exh. cat., New York, 1983, p. 17). This innovative technique is especially evident in areas where the eraser was heavily employed to describe the three dimensionality of anatomical forms, particularly in the figure's curvaceous thighs and fully-fleshed waist.
For all its stylistic interest and technical facility, the present work is additionally both a document of dear friendship and a registration of artistic play, a clever composition in which the age-old trope of woman as landscape gains a new, and exceedingly inventive, iteration. As Thomas Hess has explained, the genesis of this drawing reveals the artist' inventive fusion of his artistic project with his personal experiences:
"In 1953, de Kooning had a small retrospective exhibition in Washington, D.C., and while being driven around the capital he was impressed and amused by the Federal architecture-the miles of columns and domes. Back in his New York studio, he made a witty amalgam of his vision of the city with Woman. Her nose is the Washington Monument. Her left breast is the Jefferson Memorial. He said as much. . . Monumental Woman is not a mere wedding cake jeu d'esprit; it is one of his most powerful and haunting images." (T. B. Hess, Willem de Kooning Drawings, Greenwich, 1972, p. 45).
According to Hess, this drawing was executed in 1953 and presented to Harold Rosenberg on his birthday in 1954; it was dated at the time of the gift.
(fig. 1) De Kooning in his studio, 1950. Photograph copyright c 2000 Rudolph Burckhardt.