Over the next few months we will be closely examining the lives and works of various women throughout art history. After concluding our exploration of Hildegard von Bingen, we now start a two-part look into Elaine de Kooning. Her bold artistic spirit was vital to the early New York art scene and de Kooning's daringly sexual 'Faceless Men' series provided thematic inspiration for the decidedly masculine Abstract Expressionist movement. Walking around the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art at the age of five, Elaine de Kooning, then Elaine Fried, already knew her place in the art world.[i] Her place would be anything but conventional. She saw her future residing among the greatest male artists of her time, working alongside them as a peer, not as another female lost in the shadows of male artistic greatness. As both an authoritative figure within the American based Abstract Expressionist movement and wife of the movement’s leading painter, Willem de Kooning, Elaine was a woman of influence. Her work challenged traditional notions of portraiture, sexuality and masculinity while simultaneously influencing her even more famous husband. Of her numerous painting series spanning over five decades, none was more significant than her first, the ‘Faceless Men.’ Elaine de Kooning's series of faceless men not only inspired Willem's famous Women series with their kinetic, expressive abstraction, but challenged traditional artistic views of masculinity in her confrontational approach to male sexuality. Born Elaine Fried to a Brooklyn family on March 12, 1918,[ii] the future artist was the first of four children. Early on, her mother Marie instilled a love for the arts on Elaine and the rest of her siblings.[iii] Upon her first visit to the Met in New York, Elaine knew she wanted to be a painter. Despite their often-contentious relationship, she remained forever indebted to her mother for immersing her into the artistic realms of theatre, ballet, and painting. This influence came to an abrupt halt, however, when Marie was reported for child neglect and committed to the Creedmoor Psychiatric Center.[iv] Elaine’s artistic aspirations were put on hold as she was forced to play surrogate mother to her three siblings while struggling to finish high school. Nonetheless, upon graduation in 1936, Elaine took off for New York.[v] Her first stop was Hunter College; she withdrew several weeks later complaining she was never near a paintbrush.[vi] After dropping out, Elaine moved to Manhattan and enrolled in two schools popular with young emerging artists, the Leonardo da Vinci Art School and the American Artists School.[vii] It was during her studies at the Leonardo da Vinci School that Elaine was introduced to and began her relationship with the single most influential person in her life and artistic career. He was a promising and talented artist who was the “most gifted painter in the school.”[viii] His name was Willem de Kooning. Upon meeting, the chemistry between then twenty year old Elaine and thirty-four year Willem was tangible. “When I met Bill de Kooning, I just knew that I had met the most important person I would ever know. I was mesmerized. Even then I knew he was a genius, a great painter—the most important painter at work in America. And I knew that I would marry him.”[ix] Both Elaine and Willem knew that the other would hold an irreplaceable role in their life and artistic career. Willem first served as Elaine’s teacher and instructor, even inviting her to paint at his studio. (Figure1) He was a demanding instructor, expecting nothing less than perfection. Nonetheless, his harsh criticisms became the foundation for which Elaine’s confidence in portrait painting would emerge.[x] She, too, began educating Willem in artistic expression. Thus, began a relationship of mutual influence as “eager student matched eager teacher; and as in all such cases, the teacher learned as much as the student.”[xi] Their artistic passion translated into an intense emotional romance. Elaine and Willem pursued their romance and in spite of strong family resistance, the two married in 1943, seven years after first meeting.[xii] Despite their marriage and her new place as the wife of Willem de Kooning, Elaine was not one to put on an apron and cook;[xiii] she never let her domestic role take precedence within her life.[xiv] Artist, not wife, remained Elaine’s primary role. Yet, these ideals soon came into direct conflict with the burgeoning New York art scene, but Elaine took delight in the challenge. Elaine relished in the artistic genius of her new husband.[xv] They gained status in Manhattan’s artistic sub-culture, Willem as the rising European genius of American abstraction and Elaine as his gregarious promoter. During that time she continued to paint, but Elaine came onto the scene in an artistic era dominated by American male ‘machismo.’ The end of World War II saw the rise of New York as the art capital of the western world and the development of the American Abstract Expressionist movement. The movement was spiritual, yet aggressive. Artists painted the intangible, yet the process was inherently physical. Critics and collectors felt the embodiment of the Abstract Expressionist lay in the masculine, emotionally damaged male artists like Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and her husband, Willem. In addition, post-WWII’s return to traditional roles saw hesitancy among collectors to “take a chance on a woman painter, who might decide to turn the studio into a nursery.”[xvi] The 1940s and 50s were a time when self-sufficiency in women was both threatening and unnatural to men. Therefore, collectors sought Willem, not Elaine. Yet, when asked “How does it feel to be an artist yourself and to have to work in the shadow of your husband?” Elaine simply answered, “I don’t paint in his shadow. I work in his light.”[xvii] Simply put, Elaine did not see her marriage to Willem as a hindrance to the advancement of her career. She utilized his connections within the New York art scene to become a primary figure within the Abstract Expressionist movement, alongside friends and peers: Pollock, Krasner, Rothko, Newman and Motherwell. Elaine de Kooning solidified her place within Abstract Expressionism throughout the latter half of the 1940s. During this time she became a force within the industry making it “as a person, not as a woman…because it was too hard to be a woman.”[xviii] After being approached in 1948 by the chief editor of Art News, Elaine began writing as an art critic for the leading arts magazine of the day.[xix] The move was paramount in the American art scene as Elaine was the first artist to also become a critic.[xx] She began writing for two dollars a review, viewing criticism as a way to fully understand and clarify the visual works within her mind.[xxi] Immediately, Elaine became a highly respected critic in her unique approach to art criticism. As an artist herself, Elaine strayed from ever being too critical, focusing on the positive acts of the painting or artist; she knew she was superior only to the people who thought they were superior to her.[xxii] Later that year Elaine accompanied Willem to North Carolina as he accepted a summer teaching opportunity at the avant-garde Black Mountain College.[xxiii] Elaine painted frenetically throughout that summer. She also attended highly influential courses by the college's creator, Josef Albers, courses that left an indelible mark on all of her future works.[xxiv] In 1949 she co-founded the Eighth Street Club; modeled after the pre-war European cafés, it was a place for new and established artists to gather, drink and socialize.[xxv] Frank O’Hara and other members labeled her as the ‘White Goddess,’ a woman whom all adored.[xxvi] Although several artists had claimed "We don't need dames,"[xxvii] within Abstract Expressionism, Elaine had firmly solidified her own place among the New York Art School by the late 1940s. Her comfort and position amid the other leading artists of the day created the body of subjects that formed her future 'Faceless Men' series; first among them was Al Lazar. Beginning with Lazar as her first subject, Elaine de Kooning turned the tables on traditional portraiture and began a series that held profound influence on her husband Willem.
Lazar's sexual energy. Colors are warm monochromatic ochers and browns with traces of green. In Al Lazar, Elaine created an intensely masculine and sexually charged painting of a man who eventually became her lover. Recalling the numerous nudes and objectified female forms from her early trips to New York's museums, Elaine rejected the centuries-old privileged ‘male gaze.’ She explained, "Women painted women: Vigee-Lebrun, Mary Cassatt and so forth. And I thought, men always painted the opposite sex, and I wanted to paint men as sex objects."[xxxi] Elaine succeeded in her first attempt. She begins Lazar's objectification with the omission of all facial features. "Without the facial expression as a focal point, the viewer is confronted by Lazar's sexuality due to the open body language and the gesture of the paint handling."[xxxii] His crotch is emphasized by a glowing red hue surrounded by thick black triangular brushstrokes. Yet, Lazar's distinct personality emerges through the rendering of Elaine's angular and kinetic brushstrokes. Elaine masterfully "asserts the power of the female gaze"[xxxiii] on an objectified male sitter while still maintaining the unique identity of her subject. Al Lazar #2 also held a profound influence over Willem. The artist who previously criticized portraiture and was then known and praised for his abstract canvases began his famous Woman series the following year. He, too, chose to depict the opposite sex in an objectified manner through means of angular and thick gestural brushstrokes (Figure 2). With engorged breasts and generic features, Willem's Women also read as objectified members of the opposite sex. Yet, he fails, where Elaine succeeded, to capture the distinct identity of the women. Instead they read as totemistic fertility figures. Nonetheless, his most famous series is indebted to his wife. "Elaine's slashing series of male portraits…are more persuasive preludes to his [Willem's] Women than are his own less painterly and more linear series."[xxxiv] Without Elaine, Willem may never have succeeded in pursuing his most famous paintings to date. Figure 1 Figure 2 i Rose Slivka, introduction essay to Elaine de Kooning: The Spirit of Abstract Expressionism, by Elaine de Kooning, (New York: George Braziller, 1994), 23.
ii Justin Wolf, “Elaine de Kooning,” The Art Study Foundation, last modified 2012, accessed April 30, 2012, http://www.theartstory.org/artist-de-kooning-elaine.htm. iii Ibid. iv Ibid. v Rose Slivka, introduction essay to Elaine de Kooning: The Spirit of Abstract Expressionism, by Elaine de Kooning, (New York: George Braziller, 1994), 23. vi Jane K. Bledsoe, introduction to E de K: Elaine de Kooning, ed. Jane K. Bledsoe et al. (Athens: Georgia Museum of Art, 1992), 13. vii Rose Slivka, introduction essay to Elaine de Kooning: The Spirit of Abstract Expressionism, by Elaine de Kooning, (New York: George Braziller, 1994), 23. viii Ibid. ix Lee Hall, Elaine and Bill: Portrait of a Marriage, (New York: Harper Collins, 1993), 29. x Ibid. 30. xi Ibid. 31 xii Rose Slivka, introduction essay to Elaine de Kooning: The Spirit of Abstract Expressionism, by Elaine de Kooning, (New York: George Braziller, 1994),24 xiii Ibid.28. xiv Jane K. Bledsoe, introduction to E de K: Elaine de Kooning, ed. Jane K. Bledsoe et al. (Athens: Georgia Museum of Art, 1992), 18. xv Rose Slivka, introduction essay to Elaine de Kooning: The Spirit of Abstract Expressionism, by Elaine de Kooning, (New York: George Braziller, 1994),27. xvii Ann Gibson, “Lee Krasner and Women’s Innovations in American Abstract Painting,” Art Journal 28 no.2 (2007): 12, accessed April 17, 2012, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20358126. xvii Rose Slivka, introduction essay to Elaine de Kooning: The Spirit of Abstract Expressionism, by Elaine de Kooning, (New York: George Braziller, 1994), 28. xviii Jane K. Bledsoe, introduction to E de K: Elaine de Kooning, ed. Jane K. Bledsoe et al. (Athens: Georgia Museum of Art, 1992), 19. xix Rose Slivka, introduction essay to Elaine de Kooning: The Spirit of Abstract Expressionism, by Elaine de Kooning, (New York: George Braziller, 1994), 25. xx Ibid. xxi Marjorie Luyckx, preface to Elaine de Kooning: The Spirit of Abstract Expressionism, by Elaine de Kooning (New York: George Braziller, 1994), 11. xxii Rose Slivka, introduction essay to Elaine de Kooning: The Spirit of Abstract Expressionism, by Elaine de Kooning, (New York: George Braziller, 1994), 25. xxiiI Ibid. 24. xxiv Ibid. xxv Jane K. Bledsoe, introduction to E de K: Elaine de Kooning, ed. Jane K. Bledsoe et al. (Athens: Georgia Museum of Art, 1992), 13. xxvi Ibid. 13-14 xxvii Ellen G. Landau, “Aspects of the Fifties,” Art Journal 40 no. 2 (1980): 388, accessed April 17, 2012, http://www.jstor.org/stable/776606. xxviii Lawrence Campbell, “The Portraits,” in E de K: Elaine de Kooning, Ed. by Jane K. Bledsoe, et al., (Athens: Georgia Museum of Art, 1992), 34. xxix Celia S. Stahr, "Elaine de Kooning, Portraiture and the Politics of Sexuality," Genders 38 (2003), accessed April 29, 2012, http://www.genders.org/g38/g38_stahr.html. xxx Some sources have cited that it was painted in 1954, but most cited 1949, the year that was favored in my research. xxxi Celia S. Stahr, "Elaine de Kooning, Portraiture and the Politics of Sexuality," Genders 38 (2003), accessed April 29, 2012, http://www.genders.org/g38/g38_stahr.html. xxxvii Ibid. xxxviii Ibid. xxxiv Ann Gibson, “Lee Krasner and Women’s Innovations in American Abstract Painting,” Art Journal 28 no.2 (2007): 13, accessed April 17, 2012, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20358126.
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