Willem de Kooning
Willem de Kooning the Artist
Artist Willem de Kooning was born April 24, 1904, in Rotterdam.
From house painter to "artist", Willem de Kooning paid his dues.
He used to be a house painter.. can you believe it? There is still hope for us all I would say.
He hung out in museums a lot. He hoped and did gain inspiration and an understanding of art in doing so.. Sooo.. hang out.. glean. He was born in Rotterdam, Holland/Netherlands.. a country free and open to the arts. He came to US in 1926 and found his way to New York.. In New York he did some commercial-art gigs until he found a job doing murasl and easel divisions of the WPA Federal Art Project. After that he painted full time. In the late on the 1930's that abstract was primarily influenced by Cubism an Surrealism and works of Picasso. That got him hooked. In 1938 he painted his first series of women and continued on with that theme throughout his career. His motivation for Abstract Expressionism? To that he said,
"Ambiguity prevails in an art and in an age where nothing is certain but self-consciousness."
The image is "Excavation"
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TURN ON THE MUSIC
TURN ON THE MUSIC!
While you enjoy learning about
Willem de Kooning
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Three reasons to love de Kooning
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Three reasons to love De Kooning?
Willem De Kooning had a fetish for modernism.. I LOVE that! I love it because it reminds me to take chances and reach beyond what I think I can do.
I love his freedom of strokes as he sometimes slathered his emotions with paint on canvas. It is a dance and he let the steps become fresh each time he heard his own song of hearts.
I love the abstract of it all... it is like good poetry.. one never truly understands the intent because it is not tangible.
The image is "Suburb in Havana"
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de Kooning Quotes
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“I don't paint to live, I live to paint.”
“Whatever an artist's personal feelings are, as soon as an artist fills a certain area on the canvas or circumscribes it, he becomes historical. He acts from or upon other artists.”
“The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all your time.”
“If you pick up some paint with your brush and make somebody's nose with it, this is rather ridiculous when you think of it, theoretically or philosophically. It's really absurd to make an image, like a human image, with paint, today.”
“I make pictures and someone comes in and calls it art.”
“The attitude that nature is chaotic and that the artist puts order into it is a very absurd point of view, I think. All that we can hope for is to put some order into ourselves.”
“Style is a fraud. I always felt the Greeks were hiding behind their columns.”
“Once, after finishing a picture, I thought I would stop for awhile, take a trip, do things -- the next time I thought of this, I found five years had gone by.”
“Art never seems to make me peaceful or pure,”
“My interest in desperation lies only in that sometimes I find myself having become desperate. Very seldom do I start out that way. I can see of course that, in the abstract, thinking and all activity is rather desperate.”
“An artist is forced by others to paint out of his own free will.”
The image is:
Woman, 1949
Oil on canvas with enamel and charcoal
60 1/2 x 48 inches
Private collection
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Great De Kooning stuff
Abstract Art
IMAGE IS:
Willem de Kooning
Woman
1949-50
oil on canvas
Weatherspoon Museum, Greensboro
Creativity is Both Fragile and Bold
by Kathy Otman-Magnusen
Creativity is both fragile and bold
it hides out in back alleys
bleeding
or in an artists
blind
side
dancing late at night
to colors not quite normal
testing emotions
struggling
trying to get over
a villains ugly lies.
An artist stands before what might be
and defies
ever part
of who they ever were or understood themselves
to be.
Anyone can create a rendering
isn't it so?
Given enough practice
patience locked in
on that secondary
goal
embracing someone else's passion
their imagination?
Copying...
another artists way of centering
one others outspoken heart.
No copying..
lest a painter or sculptor
lose their own searching
soul.
Something of consequence
will fill a page
form pleasure
between a creators fingers
and cause their passion
to be raised
if they
embrace that seduction.
When the soul is bare
waiting
ready for something new
inside their being
waiting for...
receiving
it is a exotic tale
leading to the alpha male in all of us.
Even gods of art take their time
to UNmask the sky.
Every creator know it takes a revelation to find a different scream.
Fullness of pleasure
with time to understand their own glorious flames.
The gods of art will always say
time to adjust life's microscopes
to reveal
the lust
of their own minds.
Considering all
I have felt my life.
And after the rain
stillness confined me
made me rise to lending my ear.
Listening intently
I heard a sound that made me weep
that sound was silence
beyond a victims
weeping.
After the rain
I felt a breath
and ohh my god in that moment
I met my longing
those ideas that kept me awake
late at night.
After the rain
I knew grace
the gentleness of that morning
in an erotic vision
it brought tears to my eyes.
If I bestow on you that silent measure
lilacs lending fragrance
through the wind
and gentlemen offering calmness
after.
The light
it simply refused to leave the presence of my palette
until it bled on me
a biopsy of my excuses
and then?
I felt restored.
I imagined myself to find little cottages
spun with a dollies hair
she may have whimpered
I forget
but I could not find another figure anywhere
and so I simply did not care
scream away.
I covered her with everything I ever felt
childhood undone
agony of growing up
beyond the dark.
I raise my glass
and all I have to say is...
Am I safe now?
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ABOUT Kathy Ostman-Magnusen
I paint and sculpt female fantasy art and map fairy tale adventures. I dream of beautiful women on canvas and art of exotic women. I have illustrated for Hay House Inc.,"Meditations For Women Who Do Too Much" CARDS, taken from Anne Wilson Schaef's book. I also illustrated for Neil Davidson, who was considered for the Pulitzer Prize in feature writing, and several other publications. My paintings are collected worldwide.
Giclee canvas art work, greeting cards and posters are available for sale on my website:
Sign up for my mailing list for FREE ART GIFTS suitable for children: Drawings of whimsical angel pictures, legends of mermaids and fairies in art. Tiny angels whisper fantasy art for shrink art, or coloring pages. Also a "Letter From the Tooth Fairy", ya just never know when you might need one!
I am Represented by:
Monkdogz Urban Art, Inc., 547 West 27th Street, 5th floor, New York, NY 10001
ORIGINAL ART may be purchased through Monkdogz - http://www.monkdogz.com
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THE IMAGE is of my sculpture "Bleeding Wings 5"
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Music that goes well with art
We all need music in our lives...
Abstract Art
THE IMAGE:
Untitled (Figures in landscape) 1974 Drawing, pastel, charcoal, pencil
Primary Insc: signed l.r. in charcoal "de Kooning"
So hey what do you think of De Kooning?
Need More Music?
Those Beautiful Women in Competition
by Kathy Ostman-Magnusen
deKooning painted women.. and so do I. I also write about women... and me
Ahh, those beautiful women in competition
some of Art nouveau inspired goddesses
they arise to understand their mission.
In the early morning
their tears no longer slept
fore a captors
revengeful
prison.
Taken hostage
a single mermaid
despite her heart
sins risen
transgressions displayed
for her history of perhaps impulsive
decisions.
And in that hour...
the moon
wept.
Fairies came to tell me
sorrowful three
a plight with no solution.
Yet a bit of hope
despite it all
had somehow
risen.
Within their tiny hands
bountiful possessions
boxes upon boxes
of soon to be understood
magical
lessons.
Laced with a victim's charity
twas all tied together
with ribbons made of smoke
t'was my Lily
who tested that wind
and for our mermaid
her conscience
spoke.
A melody was embraced
for Lily was acquainted with much
disgrace.
Bad days
constitutions decayed
twas Lily who did admit
many a promise made by her
were
delayed.
Yet Lily shared a love
with a handsome savior
who took the moon
and forced to to save her.
A musician from a youthful jaunt
later arose
to pay for Lily's
lost
causes.
In the evening
that musician spoke
French horn in hand
a rhythm inspired by faraway lands
his own memories of transgressions
he did invoke,
"Let a writer's memory
be sung here
mercy for transgressions
lead me toward a kinder rope.
This tale then
sung
to those weeping angels
the captor who seethed against her
fatefully lies
within every single one
of us
to judge her or revoke.
And yet.. of course
a mermaids sins
must be known.
Under the surface of the water
a whale did sleep
waiting for
fairies and legends to meet.
No longer pretend
or stories that bend.
Sorting out dragons
tales a musician remembered
from a life, death
transition.
You see I've been a victim
a mermaids quest
twas this one captured
that oh tis true
she took my breath
yet did not wish me death.
This mermaid longed for the music
my French horn cold blow.
So mercy for her within my quest?
I must say yes.
Know her heart
this mermaids heart
still bleeds
within my own breast.
and finally
the water reaches ore me
and somehow because of love
I was set free.
Legends of beautiful mermaids
who capture sailors underwater
swallowed up
because they loved them from a distance.
Who could find fault with that?
Maybe just the masters damsel.
Beautiful women in competition
Art nouveau inspired goddesses
arose to understand their mission.
And then?
The moon ceased its weeping.
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by Kathy Ostman-Magnusen
Copyright 2013
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THE IMAGE is of my sculpture "Bleeding Wings 5"
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Abstract Art
THE IMAGE:
Women Singing II 1966 by Willem de Kooning
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Leonard Cohen
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Wonderful Leonard Cohen.. songs from the poet.
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Willem de Kooning Paris Review, 1979
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Let me know you were here OK?
Kathy
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