I met her a few times in the early 70's. She came to my first show at fischbach gallery in 71 and I liked her. Remember her red hair and her smile. I also went to a party at her loft I recall on lower broadway or university ave. The thing I recall about the loft was the floor slanted. Wish I had gotten to know her better.
I’ll have to read this several times bc I have struggled with “what is my style” for forty-five years. Series have a style of painting. Maybe the ones that happen between series are forecasting. I would have to say that, literally, style is how i use and manipulate paint. Thank you fir writing about Elaine.
Thank you, Michelle. I suspect that, whatever one's style, it's always changing, and, yes, it originates in the act of painting--or the process of writing, if one is a writer.
Thinking provokes style yes and made me think of Grace Hartigan and her ideas which propelled style and imagery that has yet ro be understood but many art folks.
Sadly she has been never given her due because she took risks, like Guston but she has been sidestepped and mostly ignored for any work made in the 60s to her death in 2008. Still waiting for a curator to step forward to do a survey of her work including the late mostly figurative works
Thanks for presenting this by way of Elaine de Kooning's Writings. This is certainly what happens to me when I am working. I am not thinking on the rational plane at all, because that was done long back in mind. Imagination, motivation, spontaneity are the processes. The liquidity of the paints, the way they are gelling and blending, the way they are changing color, in a "wet in wet" technique demands so much attention that, thankfully, there is 'No Time To Think.' I like this aspect, as though caught in the malstrom of inspiration, Captain Ahab hurling the harpon at that elusive White Giant, those Leaves of Grass fluttering in the wind of our eyes, nowhere and everywhere all at once.!
Thanks for Style as thinking/ inspiration via Elaine. The Ladies are so often right .
Yes, your description of your process comports with the idea that "style is a mode of thinking" meaning that it's thinking as action or the kind of thinking that proceeds by means of actions, one leading to the next, guided by intuitions generated moment by moment.
I've just (yes, I know, years late) finished reading Mary Gabriel's NINTH STREET WOMEN, about the lives and art of Lee Krasner, Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell, Helen Frankenthaler and, of course, Elaine de Kooning, whose protraits have always impressed me; her other works much less so. (I was likely "born too late" to have a feeling for what made the classic Abstract Expressionists great in the eyes of their contemporaries.) The book indulges itself in more gossipy tabloidesque tangents than I would have preferred (I skipped several of the longer serial adultery/alcohol/macho-moves interludes), but much of the information is interesting and very much on-point about the women's struggles with their art and the hold-'em-downward pressure even within their own community. Gabriel specifically discusses de Kooning's writing in places, describing how seriously she took the task. (Tom Hess hired her to do twenty reviews at two dollars a piece for one issue, and, so says Gabriel, "She approached her writing with extraordinary diligence." Still, your more straightforward "style" --- so, more staightforward mode of thinking --- is more to my liking. Two aproaches--- if the styles are sincerely thought/lived, which is not always the case --- can offer a deeper understanding. As here (and there.) So, thank you for offering us this mode of thought.
‘Style’ has too many links to ‘fashion’ for me and by proximity too ‘temporary’ and ‘adaptable for others’. The ‘style’ to which people refer in painting is the individuality and authenticity of an artist. It’s linked to the entirety of their mind and body.
You can copy such a style (and many styles) for practice, but you’ll have to be brave enough to go your own way eventually. Finding your own individual ‘style’ is the most difficult thing there is in art.
Question ... as a poet, do you consider what "style" you are going to write in – Whatever that may mean? I would imagine inspiration may come to you in a word or two, a phrase in or out of context and that you then run with it in a way that seems appropriate to that prompt. The "style" would then be a spontaneous reaction, dictated both by the inspiration and your nature, how you tend to construct a written piece, your innate inclinations. Not a hyper rationalized consideration.
As a visual artist, "style" has always been a barely considered after thought, that if nothing else gets in the way of the creative process. It is a concept that is only useful for critical analysis and discussion of a work, or body of work, afterward. You do what you do, "The finished painting will bear traces of her character, inevitably, but, more than that, it will show us her way of being in the world," that's profound and that says it all. Thank you!
One of the most poignant and insightful articles I’ve read on the subject, Carter. Style was a battleground for that generation, and having studied and assisted key figures of the era—Friedel Dzubas, Philip Pavia of The Club, Ibram Lassaw, Esteban Vicente, Mary Abbott, and Natalie Edgar, to name a few—I found their varied perspectives exciting and contrasting if anything, to research. Your take is succinct and uniquely compelling. I thoroughly enjoyed it and eagerly shared it with colleagues.
They were a complex and intense family. A thing that has stuck with me for years was a quote from the NYTIMES obituary for the de Kooning’s daughter Lisa.
“but she knew what genius was and she could never free herself from her own eye.”
Yes, they were a complex family. And even though Elaine drifted away from Willem not long after they married, they were always close in some way, and when he was very old and having a difficult time, she returned to take care of him.
Very strong agree here! Thanks for spotlighting a vital concept from a woman who was historically overlooked in an important art movement that was dominated by men.
I’m completely with her on this concept. Style is an internal and personal framework of aesthetics; it’s something akin to a worldview, so in that sense it’s directly connected to the unconscious and it’s generally visceral rather than calculated. Parts of it can come to light, be measured and then codified, and sort of coalesce into a personal dogma — but that doesn’t always happen, and even if it does the visceral part of it stays very much alive.
So if this is true, then style is close to being a pillar of consciousness, and one which is actively queried or at least present during the creative act — the foremost of which is thinking.
Your comment about style and consciousness is persuasive and reminds me in a roundabout way of the philosopher Ian Hacking's idea that there are styles of logic--a startling thought, given that we think of logic as being supra-personal. But, as you suggest, everything originates in individual consciousness.
It is a wonderful painting, a portrait that finds the presence of the subject not in his features, which are not included, but in the subtleties of his pose.
I met her a few times in the early 70's. She came to my first show at fischbach gallery in 71 and I liked her. Remember her red hair and her smile. I also went to a party at her loft I recall on lower broadway or university ave. The thing I recall about the loft was the floor slanted. Wish I had gotten to know her better.
I met her just once, late in her life. She was amazingly intense. Like you, I wish I had gotten to know her.
I’ll have to read this several times bc I have struggled with “what is my style” for forty-five years. Series have a style of painting. Maybe the ones that happen between series are forecasting. I would have to say that, literally, style is how i use and manipulate paint. Thank you fir writing about Elaine.
Thank you, Michelle. I suspect that, whatever one's style, it's always changing, and, yes, it originates in the act of painting--or the process of writing, if one is a writer.
Thinking provokes style yes and made me think of Grace Hartigan and her ideas which propelled style and imagery that has yet ro be understood but many art folks.
Yes, Grace Hartigan was acutely aware of her style--self-conscious about it, one could say--and she was always taking productive risks.
Sadly she has been never given her due because she took risks, like Guston but she has been sidestepped and mostly ignored for any work made in the 60s to her death in 2008. Still waiting for a curator to step forward to do a survey of her work including the late mostly figurative works
An Elaine de Kooning retrospective would be great--and illuminating. Also, I wish the edition of her writing were more available.
yes agreed both need big shows etc no younger curator wants to work on it, well if i ever find a museum i'll invite you to write for both
That would be great . . .
Now, we are getting somewhere.
Thanks for presenting this by way of Elaine de Kooning's Writings. This is certainly what happens to me when I am working. I am not thinking on the rational plane at all, because that was done long back in mind. Imagination, motivation, spontaneity are the processes. The liquidity of the paints, the way they are gelling and blending, the way they are changing color, in a "wet in wet" technique demands so much attention that, thankfully, there is 'No Time To Think.' I like this aspect, as though caught in the malstrom of inspiration, Captain Ahab hurling the harpon at that elusive White Giant, those Leaves of Grass fluttering in the wind of our eyes, nowhere and everywhere all at once.!
Thanks for Style as thinking/ inspiration via Elaine. The Ladies are so often right .
Yes, your description of your process comports with the idea that "style is a mode of thinking" meaning that it's thinking as action or the kind of thinking that proceeds by means of actions, one leading to the next, guided by intuitions generated moment by moment.
Beautifully said ♥️
I've just (yes, I know, years late) finished reading Mary Gabriel's NINTH STREET WOMEN, about the lives and art of Lee Krasner, Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell, Helen Frankenthaler and, of course, Elaine de Kooning, whose protraits have always impressed me; her other works much less so. (I was likely "born too late" to have a feeling for what made the classic Abstract Expressionists great in the eyes of their contemporaries.) The book indulges itself in more gossipy tabloidesque tangents than I would have preferred (I skipped several of the longer serial adultery/alcohol/macho-moves interludes), but much of the information is interesting and very much on-point about the women's struggles with their art and the hold-'em-downward pressure even within their own community. Gabriel specifically discusses de Kooning's writing in places, describing how seriously she took the task. (Tom Hess hired her to do twenty reviews at two dollars a piece for one issue, and, so says Gabriel, "She approached her writing with extraordinary diligence." Still, your more straightforward "style" --- so, more staightforward mode of thinking --- is more to my liking. Two aproaches--- if the styles are sincerely thought/lived, which is not always the case --- can offer a deeper understanding. As here (and there.) So, thank you for offering us this mode of thought.
Thank you. I appreciate your comment.
terrific book, Ninth Street Women
‘Style’ has too many links to ‘fashion’ for me and by proximity too ‘temporary’ and ‘adaptable for others’. The ‘style’ to which people refer in painting is the individuality and authenticity of an artist. It’s linked to the entirety of their mind and body.
You can copy such a style (and many styles) for practice, but you’ll have to be brave enough to go your own way eventually. Finding your own individual ‘style’ is the most difficult thing there is in art.
Question ... as a poet, do you consider what "style" you are going to write in – Whatever that may mean? I would imagine inspiration may come to you in a word or two, a phrase in or out of context and that you then run with it in a way that seems appropriate to that prompt. The "style" would then be a spontaneous reaction, dictated both by the inspiration and your nature, how you tend to construct a written piece, your innate inclinations. Not a hyper rationalized consideration.
As a visual artist, "style" has always been a barely considered after thought, that if nothing else gets in the way of the creative process. It is a concept that is only useful for critical analysis and discussion of a work, or body of work, afterward. You do what you do, "The finished painting will bear traces of her character, inevitably, but, more than that, it will show us her way of being in the world," that's profound and that says it all. Thank you!
One of the most poignant and insightful articles I’ve read on the subject, Carter. Style was a battleground for that generation, and having studied and assisted key figures of the era—Friedel Dzubas, Philip Pavia of The Club, Ibram Lassaw, Esteban Vicente, Mary Abbott, and Natalie Edgar, to name a few—I found their varied perspectives exciting and contrasting if anything, to research. Your take is succinct and uniquely compelling. I thoroughly enjoyed it and eagerly shared it with colleagues.
They were a complex and intense family. A thing that has stuck with me for years was a quote from the NYTIMES obituary for the de Kooning’s daughter Lisa.
“but she knew what genius was and she could never free herself from her own eye.”
A lot packed into that sentence.
Yes, they were a complex family. And even though Elaine drifted away from Willem not long after they married, they were always close in some way, and when he was very old and having a difficult time, she returned to take care of him.
Very strong agree here! Thanks for spotlighting a vital concept from a woman who was historically overlooked in an important art movement that was dominated by men.
I’m completely with her on this concept. Style is an internal and personal framework of aesthetics; it’s something akin to a worldview, so in that sense it’s directly connected to the unconscious and it’s generally visceral rather than calculated. Parts of it can come to light, be measured and then codified, and sort of coalesce into a personal dogma — but that doesn’t always happen, and even if it does the visceral part of it stays very much alive.
So if this is true, then style is close to being a pillar of consciousness, and one which is actively queried or at least present during the creative act — the foremost of which is thinking.
Your comment about style and consciousness is persuasive and reminds me in a roundabout way of the philosopher Ian Hacking's idea that there are styles of logic--a startling thought, given that we think of logic as being supra-personal. But, as you suggest, everything originates in individual consciousness.
Tomorrow’s Coffee ☕️ Read 😉
Wonderful!!♥️
Thank you, Marcia
Thank you, Marcia
i love the painting you included. we hear nothing about her, and she's very interesting.
It is a wonderful painting, a portrait that finds the presence of the subject not in his features, which are not included, but in the subtleties of his pose.