The Artist in Detail articles give a close-up view of an artist’s work. In an increasingly digital era this allows one to view the brushstroke, texture, colour, material – all elements that play a vital role in making up an artist’s personal “handwriting”.

Here are some close-up photos I took of Willem de Kooning’s paintings. I’m sure de Kooning fans out there will be able to identify some of these paintings, such as from his Woman series and Excavation.
The fun thing about looking at de Kooning’s work (especially in detail) is to experience the layering and sheer handling of paint. You can feel that he is having a lot of fun working with the material. We can see him scratching, rubbing away, adding on top, glazing… and of course, his famous newspaper transfers, which were a happy accident. I love how he is able to capture a range of different velocities frozen in the paint.

Who is Willem De Kooning?

Willem de Kooning (April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was a Dutch American abstract expressionist artist who was born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.In the post-World War II era, de Kooning painted in a style that came to be referred to as Abstract expressionism or Action painting, and was part of a group of artists that came to be known as the New York School.