Willem de Kooning (1904-1997)

“De Kooning strives for synthesis. He wants to re-charge advanced painting, which has largely abandoned the illusionism of depth and volume, with something of the old power of the sculptural contour. He wants also to make it accommodate bulging, twisting planes like those seen in Tintoretto and Rubens. Obviously, this is highly ambitious art and indeed de Kooning ‘s ambition is perhaps the largest, or at least the most profoundly sophisticated, ever to be seen in a painter domiciled in this country.”

John Elderfeld, De Kooning A Retrospective, exh. cat., Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2011, p. 10.