De Kooning: An American Master by Mark Stevens; Annalyn Swan
	List Price:   $35.00 Unit Price:   $28.00 You Save:   $7.00 (20%) ISBN-10:   1400041759 ISBN-13:   9781400041756 Publisher:   Random House [MD]; Knopf Edition:   illustrated Category:   Young Adults Pub. Date:   November 2004 Pages:   752 Format:   Hardcover
Subjects
DE KOONING, WILLEM, 1904-1997 ARTISTS_BIOGRAPHY
Description/Notes
'The first major biography of one of the most important artists of the 20th century. Ten years in the making, this exhaustively researched biography is a masterful portrait of the abstract expressionist Willem de Kooning, who arrived in New York as a stowaway from Rotterdam in 1926 and underwent a long struggle to become a painter. During the Depression he was a central figure in the bohemian world of down-town New York, surviving on WPA and commercial work and slowly gathering the support of established artists and critics. By 1948, with his successful first show, he took his place as the romantic and charismatic leader of the New York School just when American art was beginning to dominate the international scene. Dashingly handsome, de Kooning had a tumultuous marriage to Elaine Marie Fried, an acclaimed painter herself. Days were spent painting powerful abstractions and intense, disturbing pictures of women-and nights were spent living on the edge, drinking, womanizing, and talking at the Cedar Bar with such friends as Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline, and Frank O'Hara. In the 1960s, exhausted by the feverish art world, he retreated to Long Island, where he painted an extraordinary series of pastorals. In the 1980s, as he slowly declined into Alzheimer's, he created a late style of haunting, ethereal work. This is an authoritative and illuminating exploration of the art, life, and world of Willem de Kooning.' Willem de Kooning is one of the most important artists of the twentieth century, a true 'painter's painter' whose protean work continues to inspire many artists. Annalyn Swan has been senior arts editor at Newsweek. Mark Stevens is the art critic for New York magazine.