de Kooning, Willem (1904–1997)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maia Toteva
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Abstract Expressionism ◽  
Technical Skill ◽  
The Body ◽  
World War ◽  
Jackson Pollock ◽  
Abstract Expressionist ◽  
Action Painting ◽  
Willem De Kooning ◽  
Human Figure

A leading post-World War II artist, Willem de Kooning painted in the vigorous style known as ‘‘gestural abstraction’’ or ‘‘action painting,’’ one of the two divisions of Abstract Expressionism. The artists associated with this Abstract Expressionism—Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline, and Robert Motherwell, among others—emphasized the act of painting and used pronounced, often energetic, brushstrokes to convey expression. A preeminent figure of Abstract Expressionism, de Kooning occupied a distinct place within a group that rejected any critical labels. In 1955, de Kooning declared ‘‘Words and labels are very confusing. We need definitions. I’m not an Abstract Expressionist, but I express myself.’’ Although he experimented with various degrees of abstraction and epitomized the bold, improvisational brushstroke of Action Painting, de Kooning created a style that remained unique within the movement, with a deep commitment to the body and the human figure. Blending expressionist, cubist, and surrealist elements with technical skill, his paintings explored the ambiguous relations between figure and ground, abstraction and representation, and abstract versus overt figuration.

The Challenge of Preserving Modern Art: A Technical Investigation of Paints Used in Selected Works by Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock

MRS Bulletin ◽  
2001 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 56-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Lake
Keyword(s):  
Abstract Expressionism ◽  
Modern Art ◽  
American Art ◽  
Diverse Group ◽  
Jackson Pollock ◽  
Abstract Expressionist ◽  
Willem De Kooning ◽  
Considerable Debate ◽  
The 1950S

Willem de Kooning (1904–1997) and Jackson Pollock (1912–1956) are perhaps the best-known members of the abstract expressionist movement, a group of diverse artists from disparate backgrounds who radically transformed American art during the 1940s and into the 1950s. While the development and legacy of abstract expressionism remains a subject of considerable debate, what this diverse group of artists had in common was the belief that the materials, and the ways the artists applied them, are crucial to the expression of their art.

scholarly journals Drips, Scratches, and Strokes: The New Language of Expressionism from Edvard Munch to Willem de Kooning

Elements ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Svetlana Turova
Keyword(s):  
Sick Child ◽  
Abstract Expressionism ◽  
American Art ◽  
The Unconscious ◽  
Abstract Expressionist ◽  
Willem De Kooning ◽  
History Of Art ◽  
History Of ◽  
Gaping Mouth ◽  
Specific Comparison

Whether on oddly-shaped pillows, shrieking dolls, or basic coffee mugs, the emaciated protagonist with a gaping mouth and the swirling landscape of Edvard Munch's <em>The Scream </em>is one of today's most widespread images. Though Munch died just as abstract expressionism was being born, his emphasis on the highly personal and the unconscious through abstraction, brushwork, and intensely evocative colors link him closely to this important American art movement. Through the specific comparison of the oeuvre of Munch and the abstract expressionist Willem de Kooning, this essay will examine how and why the Norwegian painter became known as the "father of expressionism" in the history of art. <em>The Scream</em> is not central to this discussion, but instead will be looked at in conjunction with other early paintings and prints, such as <em>The Sick Child</em> and <em>The Kiss. </em>These works and others reveal Munch's artistics philosophy and technique and allow us to draw broader connections to future movements, neo-dadaism and expressionism among them.

scholarly journals Ciało, trup, śmierć w utworze Götz i Meyer Davida Albahariego

2019 ◽  
Vol 168 ◽  
pp. 553-564
Author(s):  
Sabina Giergiel
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Novel ◽  
World War ◽  
City Center ◽  
Independent State ◽  
The City

Body, corpse and death in David Albahari’s Gotz and MeyerThe article investigates the broadly understood record of Jewish death that emerges from the text of the Serbian prose writer David Albahari. Emphasizing the dominance of economy in the Nazi system, the author indicates those procedures described in Albahari’s book which justify such an assessment e.g. human reification, the body as debris, technical syntax used by German officials. Additionally, these considerations on death representation are supplemented with an endeavor to establish the Belgrade dwellers’ attitude towards the fortunes of the Jews. According to the author, the novel explicitly marks the spatial opposition enclosure vs. opening, the camp vs. the city center that is reinforced by the river, which during World War II divided the capital into Zemun belonging to the Independent State of Croatia, also the place where the camp was situated and Belgrade’s Serbian center. This demarcation intensifies the victims’ feelings of separation and loneliness, at the same time enabling the capital’s dwellers to occupy a comfortable position of bystanders.  Telo, mrtvac, smrt u romanu Gec i Majer Davida AlbaharijaRad se bavi vidovima smrti u romanu Gec i Majer Davida Albaharija. Pokazuje mehanizme koje potvrđuju opštepoznatu činjenicu da je u nacističkom sistemu dominirala ekonomija. U te mehanizme se ubrajaju, između ostalih: reifikacija čoveka, tretiranje tela kao otpada i tehnička leksika koju upotrebljavaju nemački funkcioneri. Analiza uključuje i pokušaj odgovora na pitanje kakav je bio odnos stanovnika Beograda prema sudbini Jevreja. Istraživanje pokazuje prostornu opoziciju zatvoren i otvoren prostor, logor i centar grada. Nju naglašava reka koja je za vreme Drugog svetskog rata delila srpsku prestonicu na Zemun, gde je bio smešten logor, a koji je pripadao NDH, i srpski centar Beograda. Ova granica je vezana za osećaj separacije i usamljenost žrtava, s jedne starne, i udobnost i bajstander-efekat stanovnika prestonice, s druge strane

China's New Remembering of World War II: The Case of Zhang Zizhong

1996 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 945-978 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arthur Waldron
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Left Breast ◽  
The Body ◽  
Late Spring ◽  
World War ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Senior Officers ◽  
Fine Gold

General Zhang Zizhong, commander of the eight divisions that constituted the Chinese 33rd Army Group, was killed at approximately 4:00 P.M. on May 16, 1940, in fighting at Shilichangshan (‘Ten li mountain’) near Nanguadian in Northern Hubei. The battle was one engagement of the Zaoyang-Yichang campaign that rumbled through late spring of that year. Surrounded by the Japanese, his forces had refused either to retreat or to surrender. In the ensuing hand-to-hand combat, General Zhang had been wounded seven times in all, by grenade, bullet, and finally by bayonet. The victorious Japanese realized Zhang's identity only when a major discovered, in the left breast pocket of his blood-soaked yellow uniform, a fine gold pen engraved with his name. The major quickly summoned senior officers; they ordered a stretcher brought and the body was carried away from the battlefield. (This was observed, through half-opened eyes, by Zhang's long-time associate, the Chinese major Ma Xiaotang, who lay nearby, bleeding from a bayonet wound, and who later gasped out the story to Chinese as he died).

scholarly journals The Body as a Source of Meaning in the Culture of Remembrance: The Reputational Entrepreneurship of the Characters of Yugoslav National Heroes

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivana Lučić Todosić
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Other ◽  
Violent Death ◽  
National Liberation ◽  
World War ◽  
Group Memory ◽  
Collective Group ◽  
Political Myth ◽  
Wartime Experience

The aim of this paper is to explore the patterns and meanings to be found in the characters of Yugoslav national heroes who met a violent death in World War II. These are heroes who belong to the type of martyr heroes, and their sacrifice is highly rated in all patriotic mythologies. Created to denote the heroism of the chosen, they have sublimated the meaning and symbolism of one remembrance of the war. The death of these national heroes will be analyzed through their official biographies, which served to represent the characters of the National Heroes of Yugoslavia and keep the heroic symbol-names ever present in the collective group memory. Through their characters, a specific wartime experience and the martyr’s death of the national hero who died for the freedom of the Yugoslav peoples, as seen by the victors in this war drama, were transmitted to the citizens of Yugoslavia. Various patterns of wartime heroism (warrior, martyr, leader heroism) were represented as national patriotism, and the fighters and martyrs of the war of national liberation were named. The characteristics of  the reputational entrepreneurship of these heroes’ characters are specifically explored, taking into account the characteristics of the discourse through which they were interpreted and presented. On the other hand, the limitations of this discourse provide an opportunity to deconstruct certain common traits of a certain hero type and discover the latent meanings conveyed by the characters of Yugoslav national heroes as actors of a historical-political myth.

James Griffiths Howard. 25 September 1927 — 6 October 1998

2000 ◽  
Vol 46 ◽  
pp. 257-267
Author(s):  
N.A. Mitchison
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Immune System ◽  
Autoimmune Disease ◽  
The Body ◽  
World War ◽  
Great Pleasure ◽  
Considerable Part ◽  
Cellular Immunology ◽  
Childhood Infections ◽  
Do So

In his career James Howard personified the great expansion of immunology that took place in the decades after World War II. Trained as a pathologist and microbiologist—the subjects from which immunology sprang—he became a pioneer of the newly independent subject. He belongs among scientists fortunate enough to participate in the flowering of cellular immunology, a group that includes James Gowans, F.R.S., Morton Simonsen, George Mackaness, F.R.S., Ita Askonas, F.R.S., Leslie Brent, Michael Feldman, Michael Sela and Baruch Benacerraf (and myself). We looked up to Peter Medawar, F.R.S., Peter Gorer, F.R.S., Macfarlane Burnet, F.R.S., and (later) Niels Jerne, F.R.S. We were all good friends, very well aware of one another's strengths and weaknesses, and not slow to compete. Within the group, Howard's specialty lay in the connection between infection and immunity. We started when little was known beyond the fact that the body reacted to invasion by making antibodies against foreign agents: the concept of an immune system hardly existed. When we finished, the half–dozen main types of cell that make up the system had been sorted out, and the subtle interactions between them were largely understood. How the system avoided turning on the body that housed it was understood, and the occasional failure to do so–autoimmune disease–had been delineated. The main features of its genetics had fallen into place, and the system was ready for the application of the molecular genetics that followed. Some of these advances were already being applied to medicine, and others were on the way. Examples include organ transplantation, treatments of autoimmune disease, and the ‘sunburst’ vaccines against childhood infections. James Howard took great pleasure in these achievements, and not just for the considerable part that he himself played. Although he was a man exceptionally well provided with other sources of pleasure, none of his friends was in any doubt that this was his greatest.

Ghani, Yusof (1950--)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarena Abdullah
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
Abstract Expressionism ◽  
Washington Dc ◽  
Jackson Pollock ◽  
Willem De Kooning ◽  
Ma Thesis

Yusof Ghani is a Malaysian artist who was significantly influenced by American Abstract Expressionism. Ghani’s first solo exhibition in 1984 was held at Anton Gallery in Washington, DC, where he showed his Protest series. However, this series failed to fit in with the work of other Malaysian artists who were at that time intent on developing a national identity for Malaysian art. Rather than acquiescing to the same theme, Yusof pursued his interest in "cultural dance," which he had explored in his MA thesis, eventually expanding it into the fundamental theme of his SiriTari (Dance Series) (1984–1992). Yusof Ghani’s works possess an astonishing fluidity that captures the exhilaration and tension of his subject matter. Heavily influenced by Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning, Ghani’s works are intense, powerful, and are usually noted for their spontaneous and ferocious brushstrokes. His works consist of abstract (or semi-abstract) forms and imageries, emphasizing formalistic experimentation in his use of colors, emphasis on the simplification of forms, and expressive qualities of his lines.

Dimensions of the American Art Market

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert B. Ekelund ◽  
John D. Jackson ◽  
Robert D. Tollison
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Art Education ◽  
Abstract Expressionism ◽  
American Art ◽  
Art Market ◽  
Postwar Period ◽  
World War ◽  
American Modernism ◽  
Alfred Stieglitz

Chapter 2 discusses the long evolution of the market for American art in a brief synopsis of key developments along the way. It explains the early marketing of American art, the romance of collectors with Old Masters, the shift in art education of Americans to Europe (especially Paris and Munich) and the ultimate development of a “unique” American art at the turn of the nineteenth century—involving the mix of European modernism with American influences of the “ashcan” artists and the American modernism sponsored by Alfred Stieglitz. Finally, the shift from pre–World War II art to abstract expressionism and contemporary styles is explained as the result of politics in the postwar period. The chapter includes dichotomized lists of eighty prominent American artists—those born prior to 1900 and those born 1900 through 1960.

Mow ‘em all down grandma: The “weapon” of humor in two Danish World War II occupation scrapbooks

2010 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathaniel Hong
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Secondary Reinforcement ◽  
Political Conflict ◽  
The Body ◽  
World War ◽  
Political Consciousness ◽  
German Occupation ◽  
Political Weapon

AbstractThe article examines the assumption that humour is wielded as a potent political weapon during political conflict. The rebellious character and ubiquity of the body of humor in a conflict is often marshalled as evidence of its power and efficacy. The question of whether oppositional humour operates as a weapon or not is examined through the use of anti-occupation humor in two extensive sets of Danish scrapbooks created during German occupation, 1940–1945. The differences discovered suggest that humor can be used both as a secondary reinforcement in the process of developing critical political consciousness necessary for challenge and resistance, and that it can also be a surrogate for conflict that ultimately contributes to escapism and acquiescence.

Clement Greenberg, Harold Rosenberg, and Their Jewish Issues

Prospects ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 651-664 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Baigell
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Art Criticism ◽  
Abstract Expressionism ◽  
Immigrant Parents ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Jackson Pollock ◽  
The Social ◽  
Willem De Kooning ◽  
Clement Greenberg ◽  
Art Critics

Clement Greenberg (1909–94) and Harold Rosenberg (1906–78) were the two art critics most closely associated with abstract expressionism in the 1940s and 1950s. Neither began their careers as art critics, however. By the mid-1980s, Rosenberg had published literary essays and poems in left-wing magazines, and Greenberg's articles and reviews first appeared at the end of that decade. During the 1940s, Greenberg began to write art criticism, and Rosenberg's essays began to appear frequently in the 1950s. By that time, both had become part of the group known informally as the New York Intellectuals, many of whom were Jewish and children of immigrant parents.Highly verbal, vocal, argumentative, and politically left of center, they often published in magazines such as Partisan Review, Commentary, and Dissent. Although both Greenberg and Rosenberg ultimately rejected the more dogmatic and authoritarian aspects of leftist politics, they nevertheless supported the idea that society must move forward, but not necessarily by political means. Greenberg thought that such momentum could be maintained by the cultural elite, and Rosenberg, influenced by surrealism's concerns for the creative process, believed that individuals who were independent minded and creative could do the same. Both encouraged artists to turn from the social concerns that engaged many during the 1930s to apolitical, self-searching themes that came to characterize the art of the 1940s. In effect, they, especially Rosenberg, lionized the artist as an heroic individual. In the words of one historian, both “worked to find a safe haven for radical progress within the realm of individualistic culture.” And both, among the most perspicacious critics of their time, discovered, encouraged, and/or supported artists who ultimately became major figures, such as Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning.

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