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Welcome to Spaightwood Galleries, Inc.
120 Main Street, Upton MA 01568-6193
For more information or to purchase, please call 1-800-809-3343 or email us at sptwd@verizon.net
You can follow us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Spaightwood-Galleries-Inc/122951564441757
I blog there regularly and announce special events and special sales.
Elaine de Kooning (American, 1920-1988): Pastels and lithographs
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As Rose Slivka has noted, "Elaine de Kooning belongs at the center of the great American art movement—Abstract Expressionism—as it emerged in New York in the 1940s and 1950s and galvanized international culture. As an artist, a writer, and the wife of painter Willem de Kooning . . . she lived at the source. She became not only its interpretor, she became its very voice." In her essays, mostly for ARTnews, she wrote about the artists she admired and whose works had moved her; her subjects included Alberto Giacometti, Hans Hofmann, Joseph Albers, Stuart Davis, Franz Kline, Arshile Gorky, Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, and her husband. Although her work was less acclaimed than her husband's, both as a critic for ARTnews and as an artis, she produced a significant body of work. Unlike many of her contemporaries, she never abandoned realism completely. In fact, much of her career was devoted to portraitism. She held guest professorships at Yale and Carnegie Mellon University and painted the portrait of John F. Kennedy for the Truman Library. Kennedy was assassinated during the creation of this work, impacting on her to a degree that she stopped painting for one year.
Although her work was less acclaimed than her husband's, both as an artist and critic for ARTnews, she produced a significant body of work. Unlike many of her contemporaries, she never abandoned realism completely. In fact, much of her career was devoted to portraits. She held guest professorships at Yale and Carnegie Mellon University and painted the portrait of John F. Kennedy for the Truman Library. Kennedy was assassinated during the creation of this work, impacting on her to a degree that she stopped painting for one year. As an artist, her main artistic activity was painting and she made very few prints, and those mostly to accompany or to celebrate her friends like poet/curator Frank O'Hara and poet/critic John Ashbery.
Elaine de Kooning was born as Elaine Marie Fried in Brooklyn, New York. During her youth, her artistic side was encouraged by her mother, who took her to museums and taught her to draw what she saw. She began to study with Conrad Marca-Relli and met Willem de Kooning, Arshile Gorky, and Milton Resnick at the Leonardo da Vinci Art School, New York in 1937, but switched soon to the American Artist School. In 1938, she became Willem de Kooning's student, and, in 1943, his wife. In the 1940s, they were a typical artist couple, living in extreme poverty but producing an astonishing amount of works. The de Koonings marriage was a difficult one. Both had significant problems with alcohol. They lived apart for several years in the 1960s, and both had a number of sexual relationships with other partners, though they never divorced. However, their strong emotional bindings led them back together, especially when Elaine overcame her alcoholism and helped Willem on his own path to sobriety. Elaine was a chain smoker, which eventually led to her death from lung cancer, aged 70.
Selected Bibliography: Jane Bledsoe, ed; essays by Lawrence Campbell, Helen a Harrison, Rose Slivka, Elaine De Kooning: Essays by Lawrence Campbell, Helen a Harrison, Rose Slivka (Athens: University of Georgia Art Museum, 1992); Jill Rachelle Chancey, Elaine de Kooning: Negotiating the masculinity of abstract expressionism (Lawrence: University of Kansas, 2006); Elaine De Kooning, The Spirit of Abstract Expressionism, Selected Writings (NY: George Braziller, 1994); Elaine de Kooning: Portraits (NY: Salander O'Reilly Galleries, 1999); Lee Hall, Elaine and Bill, Portrait of a Marriage: The Lives of Willem and Elaine De Kooning (HarperCollins: NY, 1993).
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John Ashbery. Original lithograph, 1984. 175 signed & numbered impressions of which twenty five were reserved for contributors (including Richard Avedon, Jim Dine, Willem de Kooning, Elaine de Kooning, Jane Freilicher, Alex Katz, R. B. Kitaj, and Larry Rivers) to a deluxe edition of John Ashbery's Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror. Image size: 387mm diameter. Price: $3000.
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On the way to San Remo. Original lithograph, 1967. 2500 impressions for a memorial tribute to the poet and art critic, Frank O'Hara, published in a speecial portfolio by the Museum of Modern Art. Image size: 303x227mm. Price: $500.
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A rainy Nan[tucket] afternoon (MI6137-1). Original pastel. Titled, signed "E. de Kooning," and given a work number in green marker on the brown paper formerly on the back of the frame. A charming life study of a young girl. Image size: 275x160mm. Price: SOLD.
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Title, work number, and signature from brown paper on back of original frame.
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Spaightwood Galleries, Inc.
To purchase, call us at 1-800-809-3343 (508-529-2511 in Upton MA & vicinity) or send an email to sptwd@verizon.net.
We accept AmericanExpress, DiscoverCard, MasterCard, and Visa.
We also accept wire transfers and paypal.
For directions and visiting information, please call. We are, of course, always available over the web and by telephone (see above for contact information). Click the following for links to past shows and artists. For a visual tour of the gallery, please click here. For information about Andy Weiner and Sonja Hansard-Weiner, please click here. For a list of special offers currently available, see Specials.
All works are sold with an unconditional guarantee of authenticity (as described in our website listing).
Go back to the top of this page.
Visiting hours: Saturday and Sunday noon to 6 pm and other times by arrangement.
Please call to confirm your visit. Browsers and guests are welcome.
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