Woman, I

Willem de Kooning American, born The Netherlands

1950–1952

Not on view

Returned to lender

This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.

The result of a protracted period of labor that involved the creation and destruction of many other possible versions, Woman, I appears to be suspended in a state of arrested development. The effect was deliberate: throughout his career, de Kooning prized experimentation, editing, and testing. To this end, he employed a range of techniques, from cutting, masking, and collaging to scraping, wiping, and blotting. Although he also produced individual sketches, the real sketching happened on his canvases. Yet this alone does not account for the unfinished quality of his finished painting. De Kooning’s purposefully fluid, undisciplined brushwork and his tendency to disregard contour lines produce a visual chaos that suggests incompletion, whether spatial, physical, or technical. "I refrain from finishing," the artist said in 1958. He elaborated in 1960: "I was never interested . . . [in] how to make a good painting. . . . I didn’t want to pin it down at all."

Artwork Details

Overview

Exhibition History

Title: Woman, I
Artist: Willem de Kooning (American (born The Netherlands), Rotterdam 1904–1997 East Hampton, New York)
Date: 1950–1952
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 75 7/8 × 58 in. (192.7 × 147.3 cm)
Classification: Paintings
Credit Line: The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Purchase, 1953
Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art