| Woman III | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Artist | Willem de Kooning |
| Year | 1953 |
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 172.7 cm× 123.2 cm(68 in× 48.5 in) |
| Location | Private collection of Steven A. Cohen |
Woman III is a 1953 painting by abstract expressionist painter Willem de Kooning. It is one of a series of six Women paintings done by de Kooning in the early 1950s, which were first exhibited at the Sidney Janis gallery in 1953. Woman III measures 68 by 48+1⁄2 inches (1.73 by 1.23 m) and was completed that same year.
Woman III is notable within the series for its more muted palette of grays and whites. The body is outlined in arcs of black; the chest and arms are more voluminous than flat, as in other Women paintings. The features of Woman III's mask-like face are rendered. The figure stands apart from the background.
From the late 1970s to 1994, the painting was part of the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art collection. After the Iranian Revolution in 1979, the painting could not be shown because of strict rules set by the government about the visual arts and acceptable subject matter. Finally, in 1994, the painting was acquired by collector Thomas Ammann [1] and subsequently traded to collector David Geffen for part of a 16th-century Persian manuscript, the Shahnameh of Shah Tahmasp . [2]
In November 2006, the painting was sold by Geffen to billionaire Steven A. Cohen for $137.5 million. It is currently the fourteenth most expensive painting ever bought, and the only of de Kooning's early Woman series not held in a public collection.
Abstract expressionism in the United States emerged as a distinct art movement in the immediate aftermath of World War II and gained mainstream acceptance in the 1950s, a shift from the American social realism of the 1930s influenced by the Great Depression and Mexican muralists. The term was first applied to American art in 1946 by the art critic Robert Coates. Key figures in the New York School, which was the center of this movement, included such artists as Arshile Gorky, Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline, Mark Rothko, Norman Lewis, Willem de Kooning, Adolph Gottlieb, Clyfford Still, Robert Motherwell and Theodoros Stamos among others.
David Lawrence Geffen is an American film producer, record executive, and entrepreneur. In music, he co-founded Asylum Records in 1971, and later founded Geffen Records in 1980 and DGC Records in 1990. In film, he founded the Geffen Film Company in 1986 and co-founded DreamWorks SKG in 1994.
Willem de Kooning was a Dutch-American abstract expressionist artist. Born in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, he moved to the United States in 1926, becoming an American citizen in 1962. In 1943, he married painter Elaine Fried.
Franz Kline was an American painter. He is associated with the Abstract Expressionist movement of the 1940s and 1950s. Kline, along with other action painters like Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Robert Motherwell, John Ferren, and Lee Krasner, as well as local poets, dancers, and musicians came to be known as the informal group, the New York School. Although he explored the same innovations to painting as the other artists in this group, Kline's work is distinct in itself and has been revered since the 1950s.
Elaine Marie Catherine de Kooning was an Abstract Expressionist and Figurative Expressionist painter in the post-World War II era. She wrote extensively on the art of the period and was an editorial associate for Art News magazine.
The 9th Street Art Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture is the official title artist Franz Kline hand-lettered onto the poster he designed for the Ninth Street Show. Now considered historic, the artist-led exhibition marked the formal debut of Abstract Expressionism, and the first American art movement with international influence. The School of Paris, long the headquarters of the global art market, typically launched new movements, so there was both financial and cultural fall-out when all the excitement was suddenly emanating from New York. The postwar New York avant-garde, artists like Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock, would soon become "art stars," commanding large sums and international attention. The Ninth Street Show marked their "stepping-out," and that of nearly 75 other artists, including Harry Jackson, Helen Frankenthaler, Michael Goldberg, Joan Mitchell, Grace Hartigan, Robert De Niro Sr., John Ferren, Philip Guston, Elaine de Kooning, Lee Krasner, Franz Kline, Ad Reinhardt, David Smith, Milton Resnick, Joop Sanders, Robert Motherwell, Barnett Newman, and many others who were then mostly unknown to an art establishment that ignored experimental art without a ready market.
Le Rêve is a 1932 oil on canvas painting by Pablo Picasso, then 50 years old, portraying his 22-year-old mistress Marie-Thérèse Walter. It is said to have been painted in one afternoon, on 24 January 1932. It belongs to Picasso's period of distorted depictions, with its oversimplified outlines and contrasted colors resembling early cubism. The erotic content of the painting has been noted repeatedly, with critics pointing out that Picasso painted an erect penis, presumably symbolizing his own, in the upturned face of his model. On 26 March 2013, the painting was sold in a private sale for $155 million, making it one of the most expensive paintings ever sold.
Thomas E. Ammann was a leading Swiss art dealer in Impressionist and twentieth century art, and a collector of post-war and contemporary art.
New York Figurative Expressionism is a visual arts movement and a branch of American Figurative Expressionism. Though the movement dates to the 1930s, it was not formally classified as "figurative expressionism" until the term arose as a counter-distinction to the New York–based postwar movement known as Abstract Expressionism.
Grace Hartigan was an American Abstract Expressionist painter and a significant member of the vibrant New York School of the 1950s and 1960s. Her circle of friends, who frequently inspired one another in their artistic endeavors, included Jackson Pollock, Larry Rivers, Helen Frankenthaler, Willem and Elaine de Kooning and Frank O'Hara. Her paintings are held by numerous major institutions, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. As director of the Maryland Institute College of Art's Hoffberger School of Painting, she influenced numerous young artists.
Sonia Gechtoff was an American abstract expressionist painter. Her primary medium was painting, but she also created drawings and prints.
Police Gazette is a 1955 abstract painting by Willem de Kooning, which is currently in a private collection.
Woman VI is a 1953 abstract work of art painted by Willem de Kooning and first displayed at the Sidney Janis Gallery in Manhattan. Since the 1955 Carnegie International Exhibition, Woman VI has been on view at the Carnegie Museum of Art as part of the Postwar Abstraction collection. The Woman paintings of the early 1950s are widely considered to be de Kooning’s most important works for their significance to postwar American cultural history and social events, such as the mid-century Feminist Movements. Many of the paintings are speculated to be abstracted portraits of Marilyn Monroe. Woman VI is notable within the series for its brighter palette of green and red paint employed in larger fields of color.
Interchange, also known as Interchanged, is an 1955 abstract expressionist oil painting on canvas by Dutch-American painter Willem de Kooning (1904–1997). Like Jackson Pollock, de Kooning was one of the early artists of the abstract expressionism movement, the first American modern art movement. The painting measures 200.7 by 175.3 centimetres and was completed in 1955. It marked the transition of the subjects of de Kooning's paintings from women to abstract urban landscapes. It reflects a transition in de Kooning's painting technique due the influence of artist Franz Kline, who inspired de Kooning to paint with quickly made gestural marks as opposed to violent brush strokes. The painting features a fleshy pink mass at its center, representing a seated woman.
The Daros Collection is a Swiss private collection of modern art owned by the Stephan Schmidheiny family. At its core are comprehensive groups of work by Andy Warhol, Brice Marden, Cy Twombly, Willem de Kooning and Gerhard Richter.
Woman-Ochre is a 1955 abstract expressionist oil painting by Dutch/American artist Willem de Kooning, part of his Woman series from that period. It was controversial in its day, like the other paintings in the series, for its explicit use of figures, which Jackson Pollock and other abstract expressionists considered a betrayal of the movement's ideal of pure, non-representational painting. Feminists also considered the works misogynistic, suggesting violent impulses toward the women depicted.
Allan Barry Stone (1932–2006) was an American art dealer, collector, and leading authority on Abstract Expressionism. In 1960, he founded the Allan Stone Gallery where he became renowned for his early advocacy of preeminent 20th-century artists. He championed artists such as John Chamberlain, Joseph Cornell, Willem de Kooning, Richard Estes, Arshile Gorky, John Graham, Eva Hesse, Franz Kline, Yasuhide Kobashi, Wayne Thiebaud, and Jack Whitten. He was also known for his zealous and eclectic approach to art collecting, amassing a collection that spanned painting, sculpture, assemblage, collage, folk art, art nouveau, art deco, furniture, mechanical parts, signs, and bugatti cars. At the time of his death, he had the largest collection of African and Oceanic art in private hands.
Lee Hall was an American painter, writer, educator, and a university president. She was an abstract landscape painter. She served as the 13th president of Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). In 1993, Hall wrote a controversial book on the artists Willem de Kooning and Elaine de Kooning.