A leading artist among the Abstract Expressionists, Willem de Kooning never believed that abstraction and representation were mutually exclusive. As he stated: “I’m not interested in ‘abstracting’ or taking things out or reducing painting to design, form, line, and color. I paint this way because I can keep putting more things in it–drama, anger, pain, love, a figure, a horse, my ideas about space. Through your eyes it again becomes an emotion or idea.” Woman and Bicycle, one of a series of…

Willem de Kooning. Woman I. 1950–52. Oil and metallic paint on canvas. 6' 3 7/8" x 58" (192.7 x 147.3 cm). Purchase. 478.1953. © 2025 The Willem de Kooning Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Painting & Sculpture

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Untitled XX by Willem de Kooning 1977. A work from the collections of the de Young and Legion of Honor museums of San Francisco, CA.

Untitled

Throughout her life, Elaine de Kooning greatly enjoyed painting portraits of her friends.