LIMITED EDITIONS CLUB~WILLEM DE KOONING~17 LITHOGRAPHS

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FABULOUS FULL� SUITE OF DE KOONING LITHOGRAPHS Frank O'Hara - Willem De� Kooning. Poems. New York. Limited Editions� Club. 1988. Illustrated with 17� lithographs after charcoal drawings by Willem De Kooning, printed on� ochre-tinted, Japanese Kitakata paper chine applique to a wove paper. This Edition� Limited to 550 numbered copies, of which this is #142. Signed with Willem de� Kooning's authorized (by De Kooning) facsimile signature reproduced from the� hand-signed Bon � Tirer print proof to Colophon. Willem de Kooning created seventeen charcoal drawings on sheets of plastic to� illustrate O'Hara's "Ode to Willem de Kooning" for an O'Hara memorial volume� published in 1967 by the Museum of Modern Art. Only three of the drawings were� used for this book entitled In Memory of My Feelings. In 1988, the Limited Editions� Club published the complete suite of drawings, with a selection of poems by� O'Hara, in this Edition of five hundred and fifty copies. De Kooning's drawings� were transferred directly from the Mylar sheets to lithographic plates and� printed by Benjamin Shiff . The illustrations were then impressed by Intaglio� process onto the books pages. Elephant Folio. 21 3/4 x 17� 5/16". Bound in full, black Nigerian� Oasis goatskin. 22 karat gold leaf titles to front cover. Encased in ultra-suede� lined, black Italian Canapetta cotton Solander box. A Very Fine, Pristine copy.� LEC Letter laid-in. Willem de Kooning (1904-1997)� is widely considered to be one of the greatest Abstract Expressionist painters� of the post-World War II period, his dominance rivaled perhaps only by Jackson� Pollock. Remembered for his large canvases as well as the controversial melding� of both abstract and figurative imagery, de Kooning lived much longer than his� contemporaries, many of whom had untimely deaths. The group of painters that� would be identified as the New York School was made up of de Kooning and� contemporaries such as Arshile Gorky and Edgar Denby, and they helped to� establish New York City’s reputation as a center for artistic activity. Although his work appears spontaneous, de Kooning often spent many months on a� single piece, repeatedly painting over completed sections and occasionally� pressing newspaper onto the drying canvas. Friend and New Yorker critic Harold� Rosenberg first used the term “Action painting” to refer to de Kooning’s violent� slashes of color and the shifting foreground and background typical of his� abstract work. “Painting isn’t just the visual thing that reaches your retina,”� the artist once said, “it’s what’s behind it. I’m not interested in� ‘abstracting’ or taking things out or reducing painting to design, form, line,� and color. I paint this way because I can keep putting more and more things in� -- drama, anger, pain, love, a figure, a horse, my ideas about space. Through� your eyes it again becomes an emotion or an idea. It doesn’t matter if it’s� different from mine as long as it comes from the painting which has its own� integrity and intensity.” Frank (Francis Russell) O'Hara was born on June 27, 1926, in Baltimore,� Maryland. He grew up in Massachusetts, and later studied piano at the New� England Conservatory in Boston from 1941 to 1944. O'Hara then served in the� South Pacific and Japan as a sonarman on the destroyer USS Nicholas during World� War II. Following the war, O'Hara studied at Harvard College, w he majored in music� and worked on compositions and was deeply influenced by contemporary music, his� first love, as well as visual art. He also wrote poetry at that time and read� the work of Arthur Rimbaud, Stéphane Mallarmé, Boris Pasternak, and Vladimir� Mayakovsky. While at Harvard, O'Hara met John Ashbery and soon began publishing poems in the� Harvard Advocate. Despite his love for music, O'Hara changed his major and left� Harvard in 1950 with a degree in English. He then attended graduate sch... read more

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