Paper Summary:

One of the most impressive works in the newly reopened Twentieth Century Galleries at the Detroit Institute of Arts is Willem de Kooning's 1959 oil "Merritt Parkway". The bold, rough streaks of brilliant color compel the visitor's attention and, on examining the painting, the broad areas of color and the ragged, undisguised gestures of the painter create a tension and sense of restless movement that is quite intriguing. The paper shows that as the visitor reads the name of the canvas, however, s/he may feel equally compelled to ask why it bears the very specific name of a particular place. The question arises: does the painting truly strike the viewer as a landscape or cityscape, as the title seems to imply? The paper shows that in what is at first taken to be a purely abstract painting, the possibility is now suggested that it might, in fact, have been intended as a representational work. A brief review of de Kooning's career and other works from this period provide some answers in the paper.

From the Paper:

"Throughout the 1930s and 1940s de Kooning supported himself with various odd jobs while continuing to paint and develop a large circle of friends--most of whom were related to Abstract Expressionist art in some way. The friends included the artists Arshile Gorky, who was "the dominant influence on de Kooning's work of the 1930s," John Graham, Stuart Davis, and David Smith, and the critics Clement Greenberg and Harold Rosenberg (Fineberg 76). Although he worked steadily at his painting during the thirties and forties de Kooning seldom exhibited. He declined to participate in important gallery shows because he was "reluctant to show his work when he had only just begun to find his stylistic voice" (Fineberg 76)."

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