Willem de Kooning: Paintings

Abstract expressionist Willem de Kooning turns 90 this spring, and this handsome catalogue of a large retrospective at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., (which later travels to Manhattan's Metropolitan Museum) celebrates his virtuosity and ever-changing idioms. Aided by 80 color and 50 black-and-white plates, exhibit curator Prather presents commentaries on specific groups of paintings, such as the somber, enigmatic male figures from the 1930s, the urban and pastoral abstract landscapes of the '50s, the blossoming fields of color from the '70s and the feathery, luminous abstractions of the mid-1980s. Sylvester, an art critic, examines de Kooning's indebtedness to cubism as well as his influence on such artists as Joan Mitchell and Francis Bacon. Shiff, an art history professor at the University of Texas, provocatively explores de Kooning's preoccupation with certain recurring body features--eyes, mouth, breasts, genitals, feet--and shows how he fused the clasical tradition of nudity with contemporary styles in advertising and pop imagery. (June)