Untitled

Willem de Kooning

ca. 1946 · Oil and charcoal on Masonite · Modern and Contemporary Art

Like Matisse, de Kooning wanted to leave the traces of earlier ideas on his pictures, and since he was constantly revising his work, there was always much to see. As often as not, de Kooning would scrape the day’s work off at the end of a session, starting anew the next day until he was sufficiently satisfied. The subject of this work is the process of painting, though both landscape forms and a reclining female figure can be made out.

Artist

Willem de Kooning

Date

ca. 1946

Medium

Oil and charcoal on Masonite

Department

Modern and Contemporary Art

Credit line

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