Elaine de Kooning was a famous American female painter associated with the Abstract Expressionism art movement. She is best known for her abstract paintings and portraits of men. Famous Elaine de Kooning artworks include “John F. Kennedy”, “Pele No. 1”, “Thomas B. Hess”, “Harold Rosenberg”, “Standing Bull”, “Al Lazar (Man in a Hotel Room)”, “Bacchus”, “Italian Summer”, “Fairfield Porter”, and “Spring”.
Mini biography: Born Elaine Marie Catherine Fried on the 12th of March, 1918 in Flatbush, Brooklyn, New York, United States of America. Her mother was Mary Ellen O’Brien and her father was Charles Frank Fried. De Kooning married the famous abstract expressionist painter Willem de Kooning in 1943. The artist died on the 1st of February, 1989 in Southampton, New York, USA at the age of 70. Elaine de Kooning is buried at the Green River Cemetery, East Hampton, Suffolk County, New York, USA.
List of Famous Elaine de Kooning Art Quotes
A painting to me is primarily a verb, not a noun, an event first and only secondarily an image. Elaine de Kooning
Everything was a matter of tension between objects or edges and space. Elaine de Kooning
I always say I’m an escape artist, Style is something I’ve always tried to avoid. I’m more interested in character. Character comes out of the work. Style is applied or imposed on it. Elaine de Kooning
Always when I look at anyone’s art, I get flashes of the person. If I walk into a room and there’s a painting by Joan Mitchell, I say, “There’s Joannie.” Or Grace, if it’s Grace Hartigan. And to me all art is self-portraits. Elaine de Kooning
Women painted women: Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, Mary Cassatt, and so forth. And I thought, men always painted the opposite sex, and I wanted to paint men as sex objects. Elaine de Kooning
After years of working on my portraits (mostly of friends) for months at a time, I found myself getting bogged down in overly conscientious effort and discovered that by working swiftly I could enter into an almost passive relationship to the canvas and get closer to the essential gesture of the sitter. However, working at top speed this way, I require the absolute immobility of the sitter. This was impossible with President Kennedy because of his extreme restlessness: he read papers, talked on the phone, jotted down notes, crossed and uncrossed his legs, shifted from one arm of the chair to another, always in action at rest. So I had to find a new approach. Elaine de Kooning
Elaine de Kooning Self-Portrait Painting
More on Famous American Female Artist Elaine de Kooning
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Related or similar popular artists include: Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Helen Frankenthaler, Lee Krasner, and other Famous American Artists.
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