Woman IV
Artist
Willem de Kooning
(American, born Netherlands, 1904 - 1997)
Date1952-1953
MediumOil, enamel, and charcoal on canvas
DimensionsOverall: 59 × 46 1/4 inches (149.86 × 117.48 cm)
Credit LineGift of William Inge
Object number56-128
Signedl.l.: "de Kooning"
On View
On viewGallery Location
- L2
Collections
DescriptionAbstract frontal view of seated semi- nude woman, executed in random strokes in heavy impasto in strident polychromy.Gallery LabelIn Woman IV a figural form, frontal and iconic, fills the surface of the canvas. The woman has enormous arms and breasts, bulging eyes and appears to either grin or grimace. Painted in intense and garish colors, she shifts, disassembles, reassembles and merges into a field of painterly brushstrokes. Dramatic brushwork, overpainting, scrapes and scumbles create a myriad of layered effects that set the canvas in motion and record the dynamic painting process.
De Kooning identified the complex fusion of references present in Woman IV: Venus, the nude, ancient fertility goddesses, Mesopotamian idols, contemporary women, the pin-up of the early 1950s and even the abstract forces of nature.
Fully aware of the ambiguity of form and content in his paintings, he observed: "Content is a glimpse of something, an encounter like a flash." De Kooning's Women are never definitively interpreted. Instead, they remain open, inviting speculation, while suggesting the artist's intense engagement witht he concept of woman.
De Kooning identified the complex fusion of references present in Woman IV: Venus, the nude, ancient fertility goddesses, Mesopotamian idols, contemporary women, the pin-up of the early 1950s and even the abstract forces of nature.
Fully aware of the ambiguity of form and content in his paintings, he observed: "Content is a glimpse of something, an encounter like a flash." De Kooning's Women are never definitively interpreted. Instead, they remain open, inviting speculation, while suggesting the artist's intense engagement witht he concept of woman.
Purchased from the artist by Sidney Janis Gallery, New York, 1953;
Purchased from Sidney Janis Gallery by William Inge (1913-1973), New York, by 1956-1957;
His gift to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1957.
Copyright© The Willem de Kooning Foundation / Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
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