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Listen to our latest podcast episode featuring Kevin Salatino, chair and Curator of Prints and Drawings at the Art Institute of Chicago, discussing Willem de Kooning Drawing, published by the Art Institute of Chicago in association with the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, and distributed by Yale University Press.
Willem de Kooning Drawing is the first exhibition devoted to the full sweep of de Kooning’s drawing practice, gathering nearly 250 works made across six decades. Salatino treats drawing as the throughline of everything de Kooning made, from paintings and sculpture to the many hybrid works in between. Trained as a draftsman from the age of twelve, de Kooning arrived in New York with a command of traditional technique that distinguished him among the painters of the New York School, leading Salatino to call him “the last old master.”
Our conversation follows the many ways drawing functioned for the artist. It was a way of thinking: de Kooning reworked, traced, erased and discarded sheets throughout his career. When his considerable skill came too easily, he put obstacles in his own path, drawing with his eyes closed or with both hands at once—part of what John Elderfield described as “re-skilling.” We talk about de Kooning’s refusal to choose between abstraction and figuration, and about his move to Springs on Long Island, where water and landscape increasingly entered his work.
We also discuss the remarkable late works, which may appear spare and effortless but rest on extensive drawing worked into the canvas beneath. And we consider de Kooning’s idea that content is a “glimpse”—one more way in which drawing allowed him to keep an image open, shifting and unresolved.
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About the Author
Kevin Salatino is chair and Anne Vogt Fuller and Marion Titus Searle Curator of Prints and Drawings at the Art Institute of Chicago. He led the organization of Willem de Kooning Drawing, the Art Institute’s first solo exhibition of the artist since 1969, developed in collaboration with the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, and in consultation with The Willem de Kooning Foundation.
Brown & Brown is the sponsor of this episode of Reading the Art World, helping to bring conversations like this one to a wider audience. Their fine art specialists advise museums, collectors, artists, galleries, and artist-endowed foundations around the world on insurance and risk management, including loan and consignment agreements, storage, transit, and conservation. Brown & Brown works across the fine art insurance market, advocating for customers and helping them navigate the unique risks that come with owning, exhibiting, transporting, and preserving art. Their team includes professionals with backgrounds in art and art history. Learn more at Brown & Brown Fine Art.