The first solo show of Elaine de Kooning’s works in more than a decade reflects Martha Campbell and Christine Berry’s efforts to recognize female Abstract Expressionist painters through their namesake New York gallery.
Only within the past two decades has women artists’ prominence within the Abstract Expressionist movement become a widely accepted truth. Despite being minimalized in art history, they were in active dialogue with their male counterparts during the 1950s and ’60s, with artworks side by side in galleries and crammed together in restaurant booths late at night, debating this new, pioneering approach to painting.
Elaine de Kooning is one such figure who is finally getting her due. The Brooklyn native began her career as a student of Willem de Kooning in 1938 before marrying him in 1943. But despite the association with her husband, Elaine was emphatically an artist in her own right. And when their marriage became strained, her path diverged, allowing her to embark on solo adventures around the world.
Now at Berry Campbell Gallery in New York, a new show of de Kooning’s work highlights 34 paintings and sketches across her nearly 50-year career. It’s the first solo presentation to focus on the artist’s oeuvre since a 2015 exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. that only focused on her work in portraiture. At the Chelsea gallery—which upgraded to a space nine times the size of its original 1,000-square-foot location in 2022—the show is representative of Martha Campbell and Christine Berry’s pointed efforts to surface the contributions of female artists in a meaningful way. Here, the artist herself is the main character in both her work and personal life.
— Rachel Summer Small, Family Style
