Elaine de Kooning

Elaine de Kooning was a painter, critic, and the wife of seminal abstract expressionist Willem de Kooning. A highly versatile painter, her subjects ranged from American presidents to Greek gods. De Kooning is best remembered for her gestural, semi-abstract painting inspired by the artistic milieu of the New York School.

A prolific and talented writer, De Kooning was a staff critic at Art News magazine. She was one of the first critics to recognize artists like Arshile Gorky, Franz Kline, Mark Rothko, Josef Albers, and David Smith. While she kept up with current trends in abstract painting as a critic, de Kooning never fully banished figuration from her own canvases, often incorporating mythological subjects in her violent, expressive compositions. A sought-after portraitist, de Kooning painted twentieth-century luminaries like Allen Ginsberg, Frank O'Hara, Ornette Coleman, and John F. Kennedy. Some of her latest and best-known paintings were inspired by her encounters with the Paleolithic cave paintings in Lascaux, which she believed were spiritually connected to Modernism.

One of only two women initially involved with the "Club," an association of New York School artists and writers, she exhibited in numerous significant early exhibitions of New York's postwar avant-garde, including the groundbreaking "9th Street Art Exhibition" in 1951. Her work has been exhibited internationally, and is included in the collections of numerous major museums and institutions.