by Elaine de Kooning
Elaine de Kooning: Torchlight Cave Drawing 4, 1985
from a portfolio of eight aquatints, Crown Point Press
I’ve written before about Crown Point Press and founder Kathan Brown and their importance in the printmaking field with its famed studio and book publications. In fact, I purchased the book Magical Secrets some time later and have enjoyed it, as well as the accompanying website and blog.
Recently I discovered Elaine de Kooning and some work she had done at Crown Point over 20 years ago. Two things immediately excited me – first I did not know that Willem de Kooning (whose work I love) had a wife who was also an artist. Secondly, this beautiful series of aquatint etchings called Torchlight Cave Drawings is inspired by the cave paintings in southern France. (And you know that’s a subject dear to me!)
The point of departure for Elaine de Kooning’s etchings is the cave paintings near Les Eyzies in the Dordogne region of southern France. The paintings date back to Paleolithic times (10,000 to 30,000 B.C.) and the caves are thought to have been necromantic sanctuaries for the worship of the hunt. The primary subject matter is animals –bulls, stags, mammoth, and bison of a variety that have been extinct for thousands of years. When de Kooning first visited the caves she was captivated by the phenomenally lifelike appearance of the animals and inspired by the aura of magic in the underground enclaves.
More about Elaine de Kooning at Magical Secrets and at wikipedia
March 6, 2008 in Books, Other artists, Printmaking, Rock Art & Archaeology by Marja-Leena
Hi Marja-Leena!
I’m generally off topic and this is no exception. Please forgive me. An odd little art school I went to was directed by a good friend of Mrs. De Kooning’s , Mercedes Matter. It was a little school and Elaine De Kooning’s spirit was somehow familiar to me there, though I can’t recall having met or even seen her. I googled Mercedes Matter and came across this — I guess I’m a bit of a voyeur. Elaine De Kooning isn’t in the photo, but it seems she could have been. My time at the school was pretty much disastrous. It didn’t help that the place was saturated with the glamour of Ab-Ex art stars.
P.S. I think I might like Krasner better than Pollock, as I like a little bit of order and self attentiveness in a painting. Pollock always painted over himself, fighting with, erasing previous marks. Krasner liked to settle things in with each other peaceably, lovingly. And what these strong women put up with in the way of husbands! The womanizing, alcoholism, and in De Kooning’s case, senility. I look forward to learning more about Mrs. De Kooning’s work. It seems such a positive thing that she could look outward to ancient traditions, whereas her husband famously could only consider what now seems smothering: the space between his outstretched arms.
It’s Calder who makes the photograph memorable:
http://www.aaa.si.edu/images/breumarc/AAA_breumarc_0030r.jpg
Did Ms. de Kooning have personal experience with charismatic megafauna, I wonder? (Besides her husband that is.)
Hi Bill! It’s interesting how a name can transport us to a past event associated with it, isn’t it? Too bad it wasn’t a happy place for you, though there were some formidable artists there. Interesting photo – do you have the names of the people in it? Is Calder the one on the right?
Dave, heh, you sent me googling for that new-to-me term charismatic megafauna. I think Willem might not like the comparison and I don’t know enough to know of others in her life, but those NY artists being what they were…
I think most of the characters in the photo I never heard of… Yes that’s him. Many of the illustrious instructors at that school I never came into contact with, as it was bringing new personalities at the time I attended. Horribly flawed core ideas, such as that physical rapture should be the result of grinding marathons of drawing the figure from life, were very much in ascendancy. A disastrous ideology. As well, the long hours of enforced obsequious attendance to mad, incomprehensible, optical trivia was maddening. To say the least.
Oooh, fascinating. Thanks.
Charismatic megafauna is a new one to me too. Heh.
What can I say, Bill?! I guess I was more fortunate with my art school, though I think there’s always a bit of brown nosing going on.
Hi rr, glad it interests, and Dave’s given us a chuckle!