Two substantial vertical bands of black soar up from the center of the canvas, stretching up and stopping just short of the upper edge of the picture plane. The visually simple, yet conceptually complex, composition aligns to Kline’s interest not only in the gesture, but also the space it occupies. Unequivocally American, yet built on foundations that are universal, the manner in which Kline composes and constructs his paintings is both very visual and yet deeply philosophical, and as such his calligraphic gestures have come to represent abstraction in its purest form. One of the leading figures of his generation, Kline’s dramatic black-and-white canvases display the doctrines of the Abstract Expressionism in their purest form. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.The bold, almost architectural, forms that expand across surface of Franz Kline’s 1955 painting Untitled, displays the artist’s revolutionary and uncompromising approach to the abstract form. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". (Sixteen pages of b&w photographs-not seen)Īn extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. Written in pedestrian prose-but nonetheless a continually engrossing, if depressing, portrait of an American master. In 1989, Elaine died of lung cancer today, the ``American Picasso'' has been declared mentally incompetent, his daughter and a lawyer acting as his co-conservators. But after 20 years, the couple reunited, and Elaine, recovering from alcoholism, devoted her final years to protecting the health and reputation of her husband, who became ever more reclusive and detached. The de Koonings eventually separated after Willem fathered an illegitimate child and Elaine sank into dipsomania. His works commanded higher and higher prices-but his drinking escalated as well. When Pollock was killed in a car crash while drunk, de Kooning's reputation as ``the greatest American painter'' soared. Who could best hold his liquor also became a point of contention, though both ended up as alcoholics. Even so, fellow action-painter Jackson Pollock's reputation outshone de Kooning's, at least in the popular press, and the two men became rivals, not only for artistic kudos but also for women. The de Kooning marriage was an open one with each partner engaging in a seemingly endless series of affairs: As her husband's reputation as a leader of the emerging New York School of the 1950's gathered steam, Elaine, in order to further his career, embarked on affairs with art critics Thomas Hess and Harold Rosenberg. While focusing on the deeply troubled relationship between the introverted Dutch-born Abstract Expressionist and the ebullient Brooklyn woman he married, Hall also presents an overview of the couple's art-world contemporaries: Jackson Pollock and his wife, Lee Krasner Arshile Gorky Robert Motherwell David Smith Franz Kline-in Hall's telling, a pretty unappealing lot of bed-hopping brawlers, blowhards, and bigots. An unvarnished life of ``action painter'' Willem de Kooning and his artist-wife, by Hall (past president of the Rhode Island School of Design Betty Parsons, 1991-not reviewed).
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