Black and White Rome Q

Details

Willem de Kooning (1904-1997)
Black and White Rome Q
signed and dated 'de Kooning 59' (upper left)
oil on two attached sheets of paper laid down on canvas
39 x 54¼ in. (99.1 x 137.8 cm.)
Painted in 1959.

Provenance

Acquired from the artist
Xavier Fourcade, Inc., New York
Private collection, New York
Matthew Marks Gallery, New York
Acquired from the above by the present owner, 1998

Literature

P. Sollers, De Kooning, Vite, Paris, 1988, pl. 46.

Exhibited

New York, Sidney Janis Gallery, Recent Paintings by Willem de Kooning, March 1962, pl. 13 (illustrated).
Minneapolis, Walker Art Center; Ottowa, The National Gallery of Canada; Washington, D.C., The Phillips Collection; Buffalo, The Albright Knox Gallery and Houston, The Museum of Fine Arts, Willem de Kooning: Drawings and Sculptures, March 1974-April 1975, no. 97.
New York, Whitney Museum of American Art; Berlin, Academie der Kunst and Paris, Centre Georges Pompidou, Drawings of Willem de Kooning, December 1983-February 1984, pl. 67 (illustrated).

Lot Essay

Willem De Kooning spent two rich and productive months in Rome from December 1959 to January 1960 working in the studio of Afro (Basadella). There on the Via Margutta, he went to work purchasing paper, ink, and black paint. Recalling the important paintings from the late 1940s which were painted exclusively in black and white, De Kooning began making large scale drawings on paper with swift and expansive gestures.

On large sheets of paper, with sweeping calligraphic marks, painted on both the front and back, the sheets were torn and re-assembled. The spattered drips of painting such as Lily Pond, Ruth's Zowie, and Merritt Parkway suggest the splashes of black enamel and ink of the Rome drawings.

Black and White Rome Q

Lot Essay

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