catalogus tentoonstelling 1994 National Gallery Washington, Metroploitan Museum New York, Tate Gallery London
Willem de Kooning is one of America's greatest and most influential artists. Born in 1904 and trained at the Rotterdam Academy, de Kooning arrived in the United States at the age of twenty-two. By 1950 he was recognized as one of the leaders of the so-called New York school. This book, organized chronologically and thematically, focuses on eighty-four of de Kooning's finest paintings, spanning five decades of his long career. From the earliest series of paintings of men and women in the late 1930's to the monumental and calligraphic compositions of the mid-1980s, de Kooning has moved between figurative and more abstract styles, with these seemingly contradictory modes sometimes developing concurrently. For all his achievement as a draftsman, printmaker, and sculptor, de Kooning was first and foremost a painter. This book serves as the catalogue for the first major exhibition devoted exclusively to the artist's paintings. The exhibition has been organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, in asssociation with the Tate Gallery, London, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The essays in this volume by David Sylvester and Richard Shiff and the catalogue by Marla Prather examine de Kooning's complex painting techniques and situate his art in the context of the work of his forebears and his contemporaries.

David Sylvester is an English art historian, critic, and curator. Richard Shiff is professor of art history at the University of Texas at Austin. Marla Prather is associate curator of twentiethcentury art at the National Gallery of Art, Washington.