Figure

Earl Kerkam

1950 · Oil and enamel on cardboard · Modern and Contemporary Art

Forgotten today, Kerkam was considered a key figure by his friends de Kooning and Pollock. His insistence on process rather than finished painting bound him to the New York School, even if he did not aspire to the abstract grandeur of his colleagues. Instead, he remained true to the intimate quality of painting as practiced by Bonnard and Vuillard. “I can’t talk French, but I can paint French,” he liked to say. In a 1951 article for Art News, Elaine de Kooning described how Kerkam began this painting as a study from a female nude, transforming it before her eyes into a male figure.

Artist

Earl Kerkam

Date

1950

Medium

Oil and enamel on cardboard

Department

Modern and Contemporary Art

Credit line

The Muriel Kallis Steinberg Newman Collection, Gift of Muriel Kallis Newman, 2006