Transcript Willem de Kooning

Paris World Fair 1937; German Pavilion (left) by Albert Speer with Comrades, by Joseph Thorak;
(right) - USSR Pavilion with Vera Mukhina, The Worker and The Collective Farm Woman, 1937
(below) Claes Oldenburg (USA), Lipstick Ascending, Yale University, 1969
Picasso, Guernica, 1937, Paris Worlds Fair, Spanish Pavilion
National Socialist (Nazi) Realism by Arno Breker, (left) Comradeship, 1940; (right) The Party, 1938
Hitler and Goebbels visit the Degenerate Art Exhibition, Munich, 1937; (insert below)
German Expressionist, Max Beckmann at MoMA NYC in 1947 with 1933 painting,
Departure
Neo Rauch, Das Neue (The New), 2003
"We came from the people, we remain part of the people, and see ourselves as the executor of the people's will.“
Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Minister for People's Enlightenment and Propaganda: 1938 Nazi propaganda rally in Graz.
(right) Hans Haacke, And You Were Victorious After All, Graz, Germany, 1988 (above, reconstruction of Nazi
propaganda (1938): a public art work attacked and destroyed)
Nazi Blitzkrieg: Bombing of London, 1941
Francis Bacon (British), panel from Three Studies for a Crucifixion, 1947; (right)
Giacometti (Swiss), Pointing Man, 1947
Europe after the War: Existentialist Expressionism
Hitler, Nazi occupation of Paris, 1940-1945
1940 - Occupation of Paris signifies the “end” of Modernism “
Hundreds of refugee European artists, scholars, and scientists came to the United States.
Surrealism is the last European art movement. World center of art shifts from Paris to New York City:
Émigré Modernists from Piet Mondrian to André Breton
Photo of émigré artists for 1942 NYC exhibition, “Artists in Exile”
Post WW II: New York “steals” the idea of Modern Art: from Paris
(left) Jackson Pollock painting, 1950; Willem de Kooning painting Woman I, 1951
Max Ernst (French, born Germany, 1891–1976), exile from Paris to NYC in 1941
Europe After the Rain, 1942-44, Oil on canvas, 21x 58”
Decalomania, Surrealist “Anxious Visions”
André Masson (French, escape from Vichy France to NYC in 1941), Battle of Fishes,
1926, mixed media; (right) Why Did Thou Bring Me Forth from the Womb? 1925, mixed
media -- Surrealist automatism
Roberto Matta (Chilean, exile from Paris to NYC in 1939)
Disasters of Mysticism, o/c, 1942 – Surrealist automatism
Wilfredo Lam, (1902, Cuba - 1982, Paris, exile from Vichy France to NYC and
Caribbean in 1942) The Jungle, gouache on paper mounted on canvas, 1943
(left) Arshile Gorky (American born Armenia 1904-1948), Painting, 1936-7, o/c, 38 x 48”
Comparisons: (top) Picasso, c. 1932 and (below) Joan Miro, 1933
biomorphic Cubist Surrealism
Arshile Gorky, Water of the Flowery Mill, 1944; Gorky, Virginia Landscape (Untitled,
Study for Pastoral Series), 1943, Graphite, pastel and crayon on paper.
Compare: (right) Roberto Matta, Birth of America, 1942
Arshile Gorky, The Liver is the Cock’s Comb, 1944, 6 x 8 ft, o/c
Hans Hofmann (Bavaria,1880 - NYC,1966), (center) Still Life With Fruit and Compote,
1936, o/c; compare (right) Henri Matisse, Woman with Hat (Madame Matisse), 1905
(Fauvism); and Wassily Kandinsky, Composition IV, 1916 (Blue Rider expressionism)
Hans Hofmann, (left) Afterglow, c.1940, o/c; (right) The Golden Wall, 1961, 60 x 70”, o/c
“Action Painting” and “Push-Pull” color theory
“The Irascibles” (Abstract Expressionists), Life Magazine cover story, 1951
Willem de Kooning, (American, born The Netherlands, 1904–1997) Orestes, 1947
compare (right) Arshile Gorky, biomorphic surrealist cubism, 1936-7
De Kooning, Gotham News, 1955; (right) detail of Gotham News
“Action Painting” – Abstract Expressionism
Willem de Kooning, (right) Pink Angels, 1945, o/c Woman, 1944
Oil and charcoal on canvas; H. 46, W. 32 in. (116.8 x 81.3 cm)
(center) Rubens
Willem de Kooning painting Woman I, 1951; Woman I, 1950-2
Jackson Pollock (1912-1956) painting in Springs NY studio, 1950
Action Painting – American Abstract Expressionism
“I believe the easel picture to be a dying form.” (Guggenheim Application, 1947)
Pollock, Going West, 1934-35 ; compare: Thomas Hart Benton, The Ballad of the
Jealous Lover of Lone Green Valley, 1934, Oil/tempera/canvas
Pollock, Flame, 1934, and Naked Man with a Knife, 1938, o/c, 50 x 36”
compare David Alfaro Siqueiros (Mexican, 1896–1975), Collective Suicide, 1935
Enamel on wood with applied sections, 49" x 6'
(“El Deco”)
Pollock, Pasiphae, 1943; compare André Masson, Pasiphae, 1944
Surrealism (mythos and automatism) and Jungian psychoanalysis
Pollock, Guardians of the Secret, 1943 (SFMoMA)
Pollock, Mural, for Peggy Guggenheim, 1943
Pollock, Lavender Mist, 1950
Hans Namuth, Pollock Painting, 1951