Willem de Kooning: Endless Painting

This book was published on the occasion of Willem de Kooning: Endless Painting at Gagosian, 555 West 24th Street, New York, which was organized with the support of The Willem de Kooning Foundation and curated by Cecilia Alemani, director and chief curator of High Line Art. The exhibition comprised paintings dating from 1944 through 1986 and two sculptures: Clamdigger (1972) and Standing Figure (1969–84). It was Gagosian’s sixth solo presentation of de Kooning’s work, with the first organized in 1987.

Through the considered placement of late paintings including Untitled V (1982), on loan from the Museum of Modern Art, New York, among works of the preceding decades, Endless Painting foregrounded visual motifs that recur throughout de Kooning’s oeuvre. Its arrangement reflected Alemani’s close investigation of paintings from the 1980s in which she identified a repertoire of human forms that can be traced back to the artist’s works of the 1930s and 1940s. The exhibition’s title, Endless Painting, refers to de Kooning’s ever-evolving visual language and his professed decision to “just stop” rather than formally finish works, perhaps seeking a more expansive definition of the medium of painting itself.

The catalogue reproduces all twenty-four works in the exhibition and includes installation and studio photography. It features an introduction by Larry Gagosian and illustrated essays by Alemani and John Elderfield, curator of de Kooning: A Retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2011–12).