De Kooning: An American Master (Hardcover)

by Mark Stevens (Author), Annalyn Swan (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Gossipier than any tabloid, as scholarly as Vasari, luminously illustrated and illuminating as a lightning bolt, Stevens' and Swan's landmark biography is one of the most stunning art books I've seen in seven years of Amazon.com reviewing--a masterpiece that explains how the Dutchman de Kooning became the master painter of the American century. It's a page-turning tale: raised by a mom who beat him with wooden shoes, de Kooning escaped Rotterdam as a stowaway on a freighter and found a second family in New York's rampageous art bohemia. He subsisted on ketchup and booze, and broke through around 1950 with dazzling abstract expressionist canvases inspired by what was in the air: cubism, surrealism, jazz, and film noir. The careerist thing to do would've been to ride the Ab Ex tsunami, but de Kooning stubbornly defied purist abstraction with the startlingly quasi-figurative Woman paintings. Stevens and Swan artfully show how much went into these notorious works. De Kooning's Woman is "part vamp, part tramp," a Hollywood pinup girl with push-up bazooms, a dirty joke and a scary goddess based on a Mexican deity to whom hearts were sacrificed. She is also part Mom and part Elaine de Kooning, his artist/muse wife, and the numberless women he juggled.

He called himself a "slipping glimpser," and this book helps us see what he saw. Nobody has ever made de Kooning's slippery meanings and painstaking techniques clearer, in every phase, even the mysterious late paintings evincing the artist's advancing Alzheimer's-like illness. Now I finally get what essentially distinguished de Kooning from his rivalrous pals Gorky and Pollock, and more. I also know what de Kooning was like in bed (loud), how he managed to cheat on five steady lovers at a time(different doorbell codes), why he slept drunk in gutters even after he got rich, and how deeply he loved and how coldly he used women. Stevens and Swan manage to do what no dame ever did: they pin down his oblique soul. --Tim Appelo

From Publishers Weekly
This sweeping biography, 10 years in the making, chronicles in fastidious detail de Kooning's rise from his humble beginnings in Rotterdam to his fame as an abstract expressionist and his descent into alcoholism and Alzheimer's. Emigrating to New York in 1926, de Kooning (1904–1997) situated himself among fellow artists and role models like Arshile Gorky. In 1938, he met and later married painter Elaine Fried; the two remained married despite de Kooning's predilection for bed hopping. (An affair with Joan Ward resulted in a daughter, Lisa, and indeed, the authors spend more ink on de Kooning's womanizing than his art making.) In the early 1940s, de Kooning's work appeared in group shows; his first solo show was a commercial failure. The artist did not meet with real success until the 1950s, when his paintings Excavation and Woman 1 made him "first among equals" in the art world. Stevens, New York magazine's art critic, and Swan, a former senior arts editor at Newsweek, see in de Kooning's life the realization of classic stories—the triumph of the immigrant, the man consumed by his success, the nonexistence of life's second acts—and this comprehensive biography, which attempts to explain de Kooning's art through a careful catalogue of his personal life, is a must read for his admirers. Illus.
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 752 pages
• Publisher: Knopf (November 9, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400041759
• ISBN-13: 978-1400041756
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.6 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #203,191 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

53 of 57 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Master, December 9, 2004

By	Driver9 (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews

What an amazing man, living in an amazing time. I was very moved by this biography, especially in the way in which de Kooning and his world come alive. The writing contains enough analysis to help connect the dots of the artist's life. And the book is rich in detail, especially about the art world in downtown New York from the 1930s on. I enjoyed reading some of the detailed descriptions of various New York venues.

One thing that struck me was how uniformly negative most of the reviews of de Kooning were. It seems as though he enjoyed a brief romance period with the critics early on, when his work was still entirely abstract. That was in 1950, after his work "Excavation." After that, the critics basically wrote him off, declaring that he was past his prime. There were, of course, some exceptions to this, including de Kooning himself.

It was also distressing to read in detail the gradual deterioration of the artist by alcohol and his destructive personal behavior. This was the only aspect of the book I had difficulty with, as at times I felt like a peeping tom, peering in on the lurid goings on in the de Kooning household. But I don't suppose there is any way to tell the story without telling that part of it. It is no big secret that many great artists, performers, poets, writers, etc., have had more than their fair share of demons to contend with, and this biography illuminates that point vividly.

The biography is extremely well written and the pages fall away with novelistic abandon. I did not feel weighed down by an over abundance of detail, but I also came away feeling very "satisfied" as a reader. Please go ahead and treat yourself to a powerful experience. I would strongly recommend this book to anyone interested in artistic expression, in the process of creative expression and where it comes from, in the craftmanship and hard work that goes into his art, and in a fascinating period in history. The authors have captured a dynamic view into the soul of a master.

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Totally Absorbing and Masterful Book, November 24, 2004

By	Ellen Pall (NY, NY) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I found this book riveting--both a brilliant portrait of the artist and a deeply felt exploration of his art. In the past, I was always puzzled by the passionate, reverent affection a friend of mine, a successful figurative painter, expressed for de Kooning's work. Now I get it. Like all good criticism, "De Kooning: An American Master" expands the reader's understanding of (and appreciation for) the art it luminously examines. At the same time, the authors deftly conjure forth a three-dimensional picture of de Kooning the man: self-contradictory, funny, brilliant, maddening, and wholly original. The result is an insightful, fascinating book-as Janet Maslin wrote in the New York Times, "smart and unflinching," "remarkably lucid," a "sweeping, authoritative biography."

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars de Kooning, November 24, 2004

By	Alice Rose George (usza) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I was outraged by Edward Baiamonte's review of the biography DE KOONING, AN AMERICAN MASTER. Mine is not a review but a rebuttal to such harmful comments. When he speaks of "egotistically" I think he should look at himself, who seems to think he alone knows what art should be expressing. De Kooning's work is a great importance in the history of art and in the expression of the inner self of a great artist. De Kooning was well trained in the Old Masters type of portraiture (if this man read the book, he'd know that),;he had exquisite skill. Abstract Expression is just one way of releasing, exploring and communicating the complexities of life. This biographyh of de Kooning is remarkable in its thorough examination of the life of one of the great characters of the century and remarkable for its ability to make the act of painting a physical and psychological experience we, the readers, can understand. I, for one, dread facing long books because I am a slow reader, but, in this case, I couldn't put the book down -- as we say. It is a great read, it is based on serious research, it could not be more immediate in terms of pleasure. It's a great read,. If this reviewer wants to bring God and morality into this book, I think any god, including his, would be proud of such a searching mind and talent, de Kooning would represent man's higher nature in all its soul searching, in failures and success. I am giving this book to most people on my Christmas list!