Matthew Marks Gallery

This catalogue is published to accompany an exhibition of thirty-two drawings spanning Willem de Kooning’s long career. Each one, reproduced in full color, is situated in the context of the artist’s work and life with comments, complete cataloguing information, and supplementary illustrations.

Opening with abstract and figurative drawings from de Kooning’s early years in New York, the catalogue continues with examples of his Woman drawings from the 1950s, several 1960s works inspired by drawing with his eyes closed, and finally figures and landscapes from the 1970s dematerialized by his energetic mark-making.

As Peter Schjeldahl writes in the catalogue essay, de Kooning’s drawings “may appear willfully messy, as if in thrall to a spirit of negligence, but never, not once, does it issue in a mess. […] Could any mark be altered or omitted without loss? The notion is unthinkable.”