
Willem de Kooning: Tracing the Figure
New Museum
235 Bowery
February 10–April 28, 2002
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA)
151 Third Street
June 15–September 8, 2002
National Gallery of Art
Sixth Street and Constitution Avenue, NW
September 29, 2002–January 5, 2003
Curated by Paul Schimmel and Connie Butler
Fifty years ago Willem de Kooning shocked the art world with his “Woman” paintings—not simply because the figures were so violently abstract but because his abstraction had so much figuration in it. Curators Paul Schimmel and Connie Butler have assembled nearly all the pastels from the artist’s landmark 1953 show, along with seventy other works on paper that chart de Kooning’s grappling with the figure from 1938 through 1955. In light of recent bombshells by Currin, Yuskavage, et al., it appears the time is ripe for yet another look at the postwar granddaddy of bodily transformation.