A prolific American Abstract Expressionist and expressive figurative painter, Elaine de Kooning played a central role in the postwar New York School. At a time when women were often marginalized in the male-dominated abstract art movement, she was a fierce, independent voice. Unlike many of her peers, who favored pure, nonrepresentational abstraction, de Kooning combined Abstract Expressionism’s raw, energetic, slashing brushstrokes with recognizable figures and forms. To ensure her work was judged on its own merits, rather than by her gender or her husband Willem de Kooning’s notoriety, she famously signed her pieces with her initials, “E. de K.”
She was a dedicated professor at Yale and an art critic for ARTnews, introducing and translating abstract art for the public while championing contemporaries such as Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, and Franz Kline. The gallery’s survey exhibition features a curated selection of paintings and works on paper from four decades of her career, spanning 1948 to 1988. Many rarely seen works are on view for the first time since her 1989 death, showcasing her range across abstraction, representation, and portraiture. The exhibition reflects her lifelong commitment to painting, from early abstractions and celebrated portraits of family, friends, and artists such as Alex Katz and Toni Ross to expressive sporting scenes. It also includes her famous John F. Kennedy series, created in 1962 after she was commissioned to paint an official presidential portrait.
— Paul Laster, Galerie
