![]() ![]() ![]() Because of or in spite of the explorations, the late 1970s were a prolific period in which he produced voluptuous, thickly painted works which are among his most sensually abstract. The 1970s decade was marked first by material experimentation and then by breakthrough. His lithographs seem to reflect the influence of Japanese ink drawing and calligraphy as many exhibit a newly gained sense of open space, which in turn is also reflected in some of the paintings. This may derive from his exposure to Japanese art and design while in Japan in early 1970. ![]() In this period, more graphic elements appear in his paintings, some with flat applications of paint as opposed to a more painterly approach. In the early seventies he explored both sculpture and lithography, producing a sizable body of work while continuing to paint and draw. On a brief trip to Italy in 1969, after encountering a sculptor friend, Herzl Emmanuel, de Kooning produced thirteen small figures in clay, which were editioned in bronze. De Kooning said it plainly: “Picasso is the man to beat.” De Kooning and this group finally stole the spotlight and were responsible for the historic shift of attention to New York in the years following World War II. This movement was variously labeled “Action Painting,” “Abstract Expressionism” or simply the “New York School.” Until this time, Paris had been considered the center of the avant-garde, and the groundbreaking nature of Picasso’s contributions was frustratingly difficult to surpass for this group of highly competitive New York artists. By the late forties and early fifties, de Kooning and his New York contemporaries, including Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline, Robert Motherwell, Adolph Gottlieb, Ad Reinhardt, Barnett Newman and Mark Rothko, became notorious for rejecting the accepted stylistic norms such as Regionalism, Surrealism and Cubism by dissolving the relationship between foreground and background and using paint to create emotive, abstract gestures. The experience convinced him to take up painting full time. In 1936, during the Great Depression, de Kooning worked in the mural division of the Works Project Administration (WPA). ![]()
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