Black and White

1943–1957

An “open” marriage with Elaine

Willem and Elaine’s marriage was later called an open marriage: both were casual about sex and about each other’s affairs. Elaine had affairs with men who helped further Willem’s career, such as the art critic Harold Rosenberg, the ARTnews editor Thomas B. Hess and Charles Egan, owner of the Charles Egan Gallery.

1948–1966

Fourteen solo exhibitions

From 1948 to 1966 De Kooning had 14 solo exhibitions, many in New York but also nationally and internationally, among them the Egan Gallery, the Sidney Janis Gallery, the Martha Jackson Gallery, the Allan Stone Gallery and museums such as the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Smith College Museum of Art. There were two a year in 1953, 1964 and 1965.

1950s

The path of “figurative abstractions”

In the 1950s De Kooning followed a path of primitivisation and developed so-called “figurative abstractions”: a solitary female figure, under furious, pasty “blow-like” brushstrokes, turns into a painterly totem open to radical Freudian readings.

1957

Separates from Elaine because of alcoholism

The alcoholism from which both suffered led to Willem and Elaine’s separation in 1957. Elaine stayed in New York, struggling with poverty, while Willem moved to Long Island and dealt with depression; both kept painting.

late 1950s

From female figures to abstraction

In the late 1950s De Kooning’s work shifted away from the figurative images of women, though he returned to the subject on occasion, and began to show an interest in more abstract, less representational imagery.

11 July 1959 – 11 October 1959

Exhibition: Documenta II