MOMA

I went to see the Inventing Abstraction Show.

I wasn't that interested in it. The things I liked were the Marsden Hartley's and a Leger painting juxtaposed. Something new for me to think about. They are both around 1915-19. Hartley was closer to the action than one thinks.

The Malevich paintings with the Brancusi column looks great.

A great Stanton MacDonald Wright painitng from Buffalo Albright Knox.

But no pictures allowed.

I again have a better time in the permanent collection. I like how an idea develops for me. I started out looking at he black lines looking for a story but it ended up as a story of the what I call Romantic B/W like Pollock is the big example but there is an evolution going on up to Chris Wool.

That juxtaposed to the Newman and the Tony Smith in the lobby which is very much a Newman-- then the transcendent Mondrian, the de Kooning which can replace Pollock-- One the big Pollock was missing-- a great Kline which has been on display lately, then a great finish with the Warhol and Sol Lewitt echoed the earlier work.

de Kooning at MOMA

                                                   

These pictures are from the MOMA site and not all the ones I'd pick, though I like the examples.

Here he takes off, finding shapes he will repeat over and over in differing styles through his life. This seeming window at the bottom we also see over and over as what painter's call down space.

I liked these drawings as well as anything, as his painting is so based on drawing which I feel so important and why he lords above everyone and can compete with Picasso.

I think it interesting, the idea that he didnt know exactly what he was looking for as no one had done this as of yet and Meyer Schapiro apparently said something like "Bill I think this is it,  you can stop here..." It's a painting!

I think I like the women without their heads. And approaching the all over design. I had the idea that their heads are in the lower left and right corners. I went to see the Demoiselle de Avignon after, that's interesting and this maybe somewhat also like Charnel House paintings of Picasso.

These are probably the best, then...

These photos better than the actual paintings whose colors  are sadly sinking in. The bad light at the Modern doesn't help. Sad, as the subtlety is what is so wonderful.

Again I don't like the figures from this time as much, the clamdiggers. This more field painting is one of my favorites.

I was a visitor to de Kooning's studio around this time. I think everyone likes the de Koonings of their own time the best.

I feel this period under stated in the exhibition as there are many paintings from this time I love. This one not my favorite. I call these paintings "de Kooning skating in Heaven." 

He was very much the romantic searching, searching his whole life. Now in this viewing he seems very classical having found. 

The Modern Classics

Monets at Modern

They seem to have their own room again.
I've been looking at these as a constant for 35 years.