Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The Woman in Me: Willem de Kooning, Woman I-VI

The Woman in Me: Willem de Kooning, Woman I-VI

Clark, Marlene

Hardcover

Art HistoryLiterary Criticism

ISBN10: 168053100X
ISBN13: 9781680531008
Publisher: Academica Pr
Published: Apr 1 2020
Pages: 310
Weight: 1.31
Height: 0.75 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English

Willem de Kooning's six numbered Woman paintings have incited a maelstrom of critical controversy. At their debut in 1953, the critics were incensed by the ugliness of the images themselves and by the inclusion of vestiges of the figure in abstraction. Consequently, they questioned de Kooning's attitude toward women and commitment to the Abstract Expressionist project. Countering such objections to de Kooning's psychological state and artistic goals, Marlene Clark's The Woman in Me: Willem de Kooning, Woman I-VI argues that these canvases could be read as self-portraits, negating claims of misogyny and explaining the presence of figuration amidst abstraction. On a number of occasions, de Kooning admitted that the images on these canvases were me-but with big shoulders. The Woman in Me focuses on de Kooning's propensity to play with the sexed body in his paintings. Clark argues that earlier criticism may have missed a more philosophical dimension of de Kooning's paintings, one that explores the malleability of representations of biological sex and the male/female binary.

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