De Kooning, Willem. Seated Woman, 1940. 36" x 54"While I would normally be posting something like this in the BLUE AND ORANGE category, this early de Kooning uses that colour combination to a mocking advantage. The subject of the female figure came to define de Kooning -- later on in full bloom with the "bitch goddess" Woman I and Woman II -- and this oil painting, emerging from stiff, drab portraits of men, is one of his very first Women.
De Kooning possessed an acute discomfort with women, stemming from his having a cruel and abusive histrionic mother who gave him a rough upbringing in the tenements of Rotterdam. This hatred and fear of his mother flowed into De Kooning's painted women of the 1950s; they appeared at once fecund, yet monstrous and omnivorous, full of anger and intimidation. Seated Woman, above, precludes the later Woman paintings, but shows the beginnings of their tension, in this instance evoked through the pairing of blue and orange.
At this point in his life, de Kooning was starting to fall in love with his muse, Elaine. Something was awakened inside de Kooning; he began to dip into the fleshy pink colour that was later laced through his Woman paintings, even slathering Elaine's apartment in the colour. Perhaps the mounting cold, dark clouds of World War II pushed him to look for warm emotions and maternal security. Posing as the subject, Elaine is depicted with 16th-century style clothing that suggestively exposes her long neck and soft, open chest, which together with long, curved lines evokes a sense of romanticism and desire. The background becomes so ancillary that it is as if it was not paid any attention to; the focus here is on the figure. And focus he would... de Kooning and Elaine married three years later.
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