Untitled XIV, painted in 1982, is a joyously lyrical work. The large canvas is filled with buoyant drawing, its abstract calligraphy utterly sensual, although freed from any specific references to the human or landscape subjects that dominated de Kooning's work of the prior five decades. As Peter Schjeldahl remarked with reference to de Kooning's paintings of the 1980's, "The author of the paintings appears to harbor no particular concerns or intentions, driven by an organic inclination, an instict, for unhurried, endless, and all-forgetful joy." (P. Schjeldahl, "The Patriarchs," Willem de Kooning/Jean Dubuffet: The Late Works, The Pace Gallery, New York 1993, p.5.)

Describing de Kooning's technique in his late paintings, Carter Ratcliff observed,

Something extraordinary happens in the 1980's. Dragging a
wide metal edge through heavy masses of paint, de Kooning
turns scraping into a kind of drawing. A process of
subtraction makes an addition, a stately flurry of
draftsmanly gestures. De Kooning has always layered and
elided his forms. Now he reminds us that he does the same
with his methods (C. Ratcliff, "Willem de Kooning and the
Question of Style," Willem de Kooning: The North Atlantic
Light, 1960-1983, Amsterdam 1983, p. 22.)

In many respects, Untitled XIV recapitulates in a grandly lyrical manner de Kooning's Cubist and black-and-white abstractions of the 1940s, but filtered through the experiences and paintings of the intervening decades, most notably the sun and light-filled East Hampton landscapes.