Willem de Kooning

"My interest in desperation lies only in that sometimes I find myself having become desperate. Very seldom do I start out that way. I can see of course that, in the abstract, thinking and all activity is rather desperate. When an idea is given, one is stuck with it. You cannot help seeing it and even using it as a possibility."

Willem de Kooning, excerpted from the transcript of his 1949 talk at 35 East 8th Street, excerpted from Willem de Kooning: Works, Writings, Interviews, published by Poligrafa.

           

ACTIVE BACKLIST

DE KOONING: A RETROSPECTIVE
THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, NEW YORK
U.S. $75.00 | CAN $75
ISBN: 9780870707971 | TRADE
PUB DATE: 9/30/2011 | In stock

WILLEM DE KOONING
THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, NEW YORK
U.S. $9.95 | CAN $9.95
ISBN: 9780870707889 | TRADE
PUB DATE: 9/30/2011 | In stock

WILLEM DE KOONING: WORKS, WRITINGS, INTERVIEWS
POLIGRAFA
U.S. $45.00 | CAN $45
ISBN: 9788434311381 | TRADE
PUB DATE: 7/1/2007 | In stock

WILLEM DE KOONING: GARDEN IN DELFT
MITCHELL-INNES & NASH
U.S. $40.00 | CAN $40
ISBN: 9780974960715 | TRADE
PUB DATE: 2/1/2006 | In stock

WILLEM DE KOONING: PAINTINGS 1960-1980
HATJE CANTZ PUBLISHERS
U.S. $60.00 | CAN $60
ISBN: 9783775716291 | TRADE
PUB DATE: 11/15/2005 | In stock

THE ARTIST'S HAND: WILLEM DE KOONING DRAWINGS, 1937 TO 1954
MITCHELL-INNES & NASH
U.S. $30.00 | CAN $30
ISBN: 9780971384439 | TRADE
PUB DATE: 10/2/2002 | Awaiting stock

  

OUT OF PRINT LISTING

WILLEM DE KOONING: VELLUMS
MITCHELL-INNES & NASH
U.S. $40.00 | CAN $40
ISBN: 9780966076981 | TRADE
PUB DATE: 2/2/2002 | Not available

FROM THE BLOG

De Kooning: A Retrospective Wins 2011 PROSE Award

The American Association of Publishers announced last week the winners of the 2011 PROSE awards for Scholarly Excellence. We are pleased to report that De Kooning: A Retrospective has been named Best in the Art History & Criticism category.
read the full post

Willem de Kooning

De Kooning: A Retrospective

Edited and with text by John Elderfield. Text by Jim Coddington, Jennifer Field, Delphine Huisinga, Susan Lake.
Published by The Museum of Modern Art, New York

Published in conjunction with the first large-scale, multi-medium, posthumous retrospective of Willem de Kooning's career, this publication offers an unparalleled opportunity to appreciate the development of the artist's work as it unfolded over nearly seven decades, beginning with his early academic works, made in Holland before he moved to the United States in 1926, and concluding with his final, sparely abstract paintings of the late 1980s. The volume presents approximately 200 paintings, sculptures, drawings and prints, covering the full diversity of de Kooning's art and placing his many masterpieces in the context of a complex and fascinating pictorial practice. An introductory essay by John Elderfield, MoMA's Chief Curator Emeritus of Painting and Sculpture, provides an in-depth exploration of de Kooning's development, context and sources, theory of art and working methods. Sections devoted to particular areas of the artist's oeuvre provide an illustrated chronology of the period and a brief introduction, as well as detailed entries on groups of works. With lavish, full-color documentation, this landmark publication is the most complete account of de Kooning's artistic career to date.
Willem de Kooning was born in Rotterdam, The Netherlands in 1904, and moved to the United States in 1926. His early figurative painting slowly gained attention, and his black-and-white abstractions of the late 1940s made him a leader among the New York Abstract Expressionists; but the early 1950s Woman paintings made him famous for the violence of their depiction. De Kooning moved to Long Island in 1963, working in both abstract and figurative styles through the 1980s. He died in 1997.

DE KOONING: A RETROSPECTIVE
$75.00 | In Stock: Order now or contact your local bookstore or museum shop.

Willem de Kooning

Text by Carolyn Lanchner.
Published by The Museum of Modern Art, New York

Willem de Kooning was a pioneering figure of Abstract Expressionism, one of the most influential champions of the dynamic, process-driven painting that brought New York to the center of the art world in the 1940s and 1950s. This new volume in the MoMA artist series examines ten of de Kooning's most memorable achievements as seen in pieces from The Museum's substantial collection of his work, including paintings and drawings from his Woman series and other important works produced throughout his career. An essay by Carolyn Lanchner, a former curator of painting and sculpture at the Museum, accompanies each work.

WILLEM DE KOONING
$9.95 | In Stock: Order now or contact your local bookstore or museum shop.

Willem de Kooning: Works, Writings, Interviews

Text by Sally Yard. Interview by Harold Rosenberg, James T. Valliere.
Published by Poligrafa

Willem de Kooning arrived in the United States in 1926 as a 22-year-old stowaway from Holland--soon to become a leading figure in the emergence of Abstract Expressionist painting in New York. This volume presents over 100 illustrations from each phase of de Kooning's career, and describes the personal and art historical background behind his work and its critical reception. Sally Yard, author of Willem de Kooning: The First Twenty-Six Years in New York, details the progress of de Kooning's career, from his brief stint as a WPA painter, to his first one-person exhibition of abstract work in 1948. Five years later, his series of women rendered in aggressive, lashing gestures stunned contemporaries, not only for their vehemence but for their supposed reversal in direction from "pure" abstraction to figuration. Of course, the alternation, struggle and intertwining between these two tendencies remained essential to de Kooning's work over six decades (as he once commented, "I was reading Kierkegaard and I came across the phrase 'To be pure is to will one thing.' It made me sick.") Featuring some of de Kooning's most remarkable writings, interviews with Harold Rosenberg and James T. Valliere, lavish illustrations and Yard's accessible scholarly discussion, Willem de Kooning: Works, Writings, Interviews is invaluable for anyone seeking to understand the work and impact of this twentieth-century master.

WILLEM DE KOONING: WORKS, WRITINGS, INTERVIEWS
$45.00 | In Stock: Order now or contact your local bookstore or museum shop.

Willem de Kooning: Garden in Delft

Landscapes 1928-1988

Essay by David Anfam.
Published by Mitchell-Innes & Nash

This carefully culled portfolio of 14 paintings, meticulously reproduced and documented, spans 60 years--from the time of the master's arrival in America to the late 80s. Readers will find rare examples of de Kooning's earliest works juxtaposed with a cityscape from the 1950s, canvases from the important period of his arrival in Easthampton, and abstract landscapes of the 70s and 80s. David Anfam's essay traces de Kooning's intriguing relationship to water, invoking the work of Heraclitus, Yeats, Melville and Frost in conjuring the sense of fluidity that characterized both his urban and rural work. Anfam also puzzles over the enigma of a man who lived perpetually beside the ocean--the book opens with a photograph of him striding across the beach in Easthampton in 1968--but never learned to swim.

WILLEM DE KOONING: GARDEN IN DELFT
$40.00 | In Stock: Order now or contact your local bookstore or museum shop.

Willem De Kooning: Paintings 1960-1980

Edited by Bernhard Mendes Brgi. Essays by Klaus Kertess, Ralph Ubl and Bernhard Mendes Bürgi.
Published by Hatje Cantz Publishers

Willem de Kooning is celebrated in the United States as one of the most significant artists of the twentieth century and a leading Abstract Expressionist. In Europe, however, the artist has yet to be fully recognized, particularly with regards to his work of the 1960s and 1970s, when he retreated from urban life to live and work on Long Island. This segment of de Kooning's oeuvre bears the imprint of a fundamental experience of the landscape, for it was in these Long Island works that he developed a new style of figuration, characterized by a transformed sense of color and energetic gesture. This period of vigorous, pioneering creativity is illuminated for the first time in this volume, which features a concentrated selection of large-format paintings. In images and essays by Klaus Kertess, Harold Rosenberg and others, the book illustrates how de Kooning's paintings--although recognizable as landscapes--grew abstract under the influence of his intense experience of nature.

WILLEM DE KOONING: PAINTINGS 1960-1980
$60.00 | In Stock: Order now or contact your local bookstore or museum shop.