Willem and Elaine
De Kooning
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"I have seen, and heard, much of Cockney impudence before now; but never expected to hear a coxcomb ask two hundred guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the public's face."
- John Ruskin
No, this quote is not a comment on the "abstract expressionism" of Willem or Elaine de Kooning. It's what critic John Ruskin said when he saw The Falling Rocket (officially named Nocturne in Black and Gold) by James McNeil Whistler. Jimmy's painting was not, strictly speaking, abstract art. But it was pretty close. Later Jimmy was asked if it was proper to charge over $1000 (which is about what 200 guineas was at the time) for a couple of days' work. His rather airy reply was "I ask it for the experience of a lifetime".
At the same time, there are those who agree with such sentiments about modern abstract art - particularly when you read stories about how some artist or other had one of his kids smear paint on a canvas and sell it as his own. These critics ask if it's likely that Gian Lorenzo Bernini could have had one of his kids carve Apollo and Daphne or The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa and pawn it off as the work of the artist. You could say the same thing about Leonardo da Vinci, Botticelli, Michelangelo, Raphael, or Thomas Eakins1.
Footnote
We are talking hypothetically as Gian, Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Raphael, never married. Although Tom was married, he and his wife, Susan, never had kids.
On the other hand, there's not a heck of a lot of people who would want to hang The Virgin of the Rocks, The Birth of Venus, The Doni Tondo, The School of Athens, or The Swimming Hole in their living rooms. But a lot of your ordinary Joe and Josephine Blows do hang up abstract art to brighten up their homes. And some of these are pictures by Willem and Elaine.
Most everyone knows how Willem stowed away on a boat to the United States. Born in Rotterdam in 1904, he had studied art and became fascinated with the work of the early 20th century artists. By the time he was in his early 20's, it was America in general and New York in particular where the art scene was at. So he hitched a ride on the boat.
Willem found work as a commercial artist while he got hooked up with the art community. Then by the mid-1930's he was able to work as a WPA artist, a job which gave him time to create something other than displays for shop windows.
Although he's now iconic, Willem's fame was fairly slow in building and by the end of World War II, he was still not that well known. His first real exhibit was in 1948 when he was forty-four years old, and his first sale to a major art museum wasn't until 1951. One drawback was that early on to save money Willem often used cheap house paint which doesn't hold up as well as the more expensive but durble artists' colors. But in the 1950's he started on his famous abstract figure paintings which solidified his reputation.
Naturally Willem picked up some extra dough as a teacher. One of his students was a young lady named Elaine Fried. She was fourteen years his junior but that was no barrier as they married in 1943. Although some may see similarities in Willem and Elaine's work, her paintings are distinct as she was able to pull off the tour-de-feat of making paintings that are both abstract and recognizable portraits. Among her subjects were fellow artist Fairfield Porter, soccer great Pelé, and some chap whose initials were JFK.
Still, there are curmudgeons who belittle abstract art, particularly since among the more successful art auctions were abstract paintings by elephants. One of the representatives for the elephants was interviewed by a famous journalist who saw similarities between one of the elephant's paintings and one of Willem's. He wondered if this meant an elephant could paint as good as De Kooning or was it all just nonsense. The reply was it didn't matter as long as people enjoyed it.2.
Footnote
Before some critics get indignant and claim that elephants painting is simply teaching the animals to mimic human artists, remember that elephants have almost three times the neurons in their brains as humans.
Yes, yes, we know that humans have more neurons in the cerebral cortex than elephants and that's what really determines intelligence. Well, let's have elephants define what constitutes intelligence and see how things shake out.
References
Elaine and Bill: Portrait of a Marriage, Lee Hall, Harper Collins, 1993.
De Kooning: An American Master, Annalyn Swan, Mark Stevens, Knopf, 2004.
"Willem De Kooning", ArtNet.
"Elaine de Kooning", ArtNet.
Fors Clavigera, John Ruskin, Reuwee, Wattley, and Walsh, 1891.
Butterfly with a Sting: James McNeill Whistler", Tim Hilton, The Independent, October 2, 1994.
Russian Conceptual Artists Known for Elephant Art Project Spending Spring Semester at UC Berkeley", Michele Rabkin, Consortium for the Arts, UC Berkeley.
"Bernini’s Torrid Love Life", Searching For Bernini, November 5, 2015.
"It Was Painted by De Kooning, and It May Be Valuable - But Is It Art?", Lindsey Gruson, The New York Times, January 22, 1985.
"Elephant Painters", Robert Simon, 60 Minutes, February 4, 2002, Broadcast: Frebruary 17, 2002.