Willem De Kooning

Artville Contemporary Artist Of The Day 
Willem De Kooning
Title: Seated woman
Medium: Oil and charcoal on masonite 
Year: 1940

Seated Woman was de Kooning's first major painting of a woman, and it evolved, curiously, out of a commission for a slightly earlier picture, Portrait of a Woman (c.1940). The artist seems to have held on to the commissioned portrait and started to use it to develop new pictures. The earlier work was shaped in part by contemporary images of women in magazines and by de Kooning's wife Elaine who had even stood in as a model when the portrait's subject was not available. These factors surely encouraged de Kooning to see the possibilities of using a 'portrait' to represent womankind in general, rather than a specific individual. Seated Woman was also undoubtedly influenced by Arshile Gorky, in particular the figurative The Artist and his Mother, which Gorky worked on for almost fifteen years after 1926.
courtesy:theartstory

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