Woman and Child

With its flowing ribbons of color and broad painterly gestures, Willem de Kooning’s Woman and Child is a superlative example of the artist’s distinct style of figurative painting. Taking a subject which has been a continuous source of inspiration for much of art history, de Kooning infuses it with the sense of dynamic energy that distinguished Abstract Expressionism. The figures resonate with a degree of sensual energy that is found only in the most successful of the artist’s paintings from this particular period as he worked to produce a newer, more vital, series of almost intuitive marks. Acquired directly from the artist by his lover and muse Emilie Kilgore, this painting held a special place in de Kooning’s oeuvre as, when Kilgore selected the work, the artist said approvingly, “That’s a very good one!” Famously critical of his own paintings, this comment provides a ringing endorsement of this particular example of his new style of Woman painting.
Set amidst a landscape of lush greens and warm yellows, the figure of a woman and child are rendered in a series of rapidly executed and expressive brushstrokes. As de Kooning’s heavily laden brush traverses the canvas he manifests the figures out of passages of rich impasto; fleshly limbs are fashioned out of strokes of pale white and pink, while fields of red help to accentuate the sensual nature of the female figure. Elsewhere, a litany of different paint handling techniques—from scumbling to expressive Pollock-like drips—contribute to the highly expressive surface.
In contrast to de Kooning’s earlier depictions of women from the 1950s, these later paintings possess a much more sophisticated approach to the female figure. By this point in his career, the artist was spending more time in the bucolic surroundings of Springs, Long Island, and this manifested itself clearly in his more open compositions. The 1960s were also abundant with innovation in terms of the materials he used in the studio, as he had developed expertise in introducing new and various media in his oil paints. He produced significant results by including water (which added a unique volume and viscosity to the paint), safflower oil (significantly extending drying time, and thus, malleability and working time), and large amounts of white paint (producing high degrees of luminosity), all of which can be seen in the present work.
Thus, Woman and Child is a prime example of the individualism and dynamism associated with de Kooning’s output of the 1960s, evidencing that his engagement with the female figure worked to transcend the tension between picture and event, observation and genre. De Kooning’s sensuous paintings of women provoke what it means to depict elementally and radicality: “I have no opinion on women… I do not particularly stress the masculine or feminine viewpoint. I am concerned only with human values” (quoted in S. de Hirsch, “A Talk with de Kooning” in Intro Bulletin: A Literary Newspaper of the Arts 1, no. 1, October 1955, pp. 1 & 3).
De Kooning’s depictions of women are among some of the most iconic works of the postwar period. The paint’s physicality and the way in which it has been applied, the color and the gestural sweeps and play of this tactile and, in de Kooning’s hand, seemingly infinitely pliable medium, powerfully evoke the artist’s own sensual and sexually charged response to women, their bodies, their skin and their features. The maternal nature of this work marks a somewhat softer depiction of women than some of his more high-octane representations. Unlike his earlier representations of women, the abundance of soft, pink tones in Woman and Child is prompted not so much by fear, but more a wry and benevolent sense of warmth and affection.