Willem de Kooning (1904-1997)

'What makes all of de Kooning's sculpture so rich-and what must modify all attempts at aesthetic analysis and psychological interpretation-is its strain of zestful, paradoxical humor. This is his equivalent of Rodin's electric sensuality and Giacometti's sly, dark irony, the idiosyncratic accent of the great modern artist. It is the emulsifying agent, so to speak, for many kinds of meaning. We have not been used, for some time, to an art of such challenging fullness... Nothing, at first glance, could seem so unnecessary than de Koonings sculpture. Even now, however, these works have begun to create their own necessity through the medium of our own experience. We may expect to have more to think, feel and say about them, as they work their slow effects on us, in the coming years.' (P. Schjeldahl, de Kooning Drawings/Sculptures, exh. cat., Minneapolis, Walker Art Center, 1974, p. 74).