Untitled (Woman)

Woman, as a theme, preoccupied Willem de Kooning for more than four decades. His obsession has been variously interpreted as motivated by his love for women, his disdain for women, and his ambivalence toward women. This highly abstracted standing nude is from a series exploring the female figure that dates from 1963 to 1969. De Kooning formed the woman’s distorted anatomy as a composite of independent shapes that represent arms, legs, breasts, hair. The relationship of her body, painted mostly in pink, to her surroundings is ambiguous. Her strange, even grotesque, features are elusive, dissolving into the complex interplay of figure and ground. Unmistakable, however, is her brilliant red mouth—the artist’s signature device denoting female sexuality.