Elaine de Kooning

Elaine de Kooning (March 12, 1918  – February 1, 1989 ) was an Abstract Expressionist and Figurative Expressionist painter in the post World War II era.

 Elaine de Kooning "Self Portrait"

 

Elaine de Kooning hosting a roof top gathering of artists

"Elaine de Kooning was a part of the abstract art movement. She chose to sign her artworks with her initials rather than her full name, to avoid her paintings being labeled as feminine in a traditionally masculine movement. She made both abstract and figurative paintings and drawings. Her earlier work comprised watercolors and still lifes, including 50 watercolor sketches inspired by a statue in the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris. Later in her career, her work fused abstraction with mythology, primitive imagery, and realism. Her gestural style of portraiture is often noted, although her work was mostly figurative and representational, and rarely purely abstract... Her works are in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art  and the Guggenheim Museum  in New York.
Elaine de Kooning was an important writer and teacher on art. She began working at the magazine Art News in 1948, and wrote articles about major figures in the art world. Over the course of her life, she held teaching posts at many institutions of higher education...Elaine and Willem de Kooning met in 1938, and married in 1943. They were married for more than 45 years, but were separated for much of that time." -Wikipedia