Hello and welcome to Portrait in a Minute. I am Brandon Fortune, Chief Curator at the
National Portrait Gallery and curator of the Elaine de Kooning: Portraits exhibition. Elaine de Kooning was the most important Abstract
Expressionist portrait artist; she bridged the gap between abstraction and representation. The first of four children born to Marie and
Charles Fried in 1918, in Brooklyn, New York, Elaine was raised in an art-centered world
of museum visits and theater outings. She began to draw around age five with her
mother’s encouragement. As she grew up, she was competitive and athletic. After graduating from high school, Elaine
ultimately found her way to the American Artists School, where she discovered artists who were
working progressively with the raw materials of modernism. She met Willem de Kooning around 1938 and
soon began to study painting and drawing with him in his studio. They also began a romantic relationship and
were married in December 1943. By that time the two had become part of a
generation of artists known as Abstract Expressionists. Elaine painted abstractly, but was becoming
known for her gestural portraits of friends and family. Although Willem de Kooning is now better known
as a leading Abstract Expressionist, Elaine said that instead of working in his shadow,
she “painted in his light.” During the 1950s and 1960s, Elaine began to
show her work regularly, and also became an art critic at ArtNews magazine, where she
was celebrated for being among the first to write in-depth about artists in the Abstract
Expressionist movement. Despite being in a world dominated by abstract
art, she never gave up on her own representational style. Her inspiration in the 1960s to create a series
of portraits of men in her typical quickly brushed, energetic painting style led to a
commission from the Truman Library for a portrait of President John F. Kennedy. It was believed she could capture a likeness
of the president quickly, since he would not be likely to pose formally. In late December 1962, Elaine went to his
vacation home in Palm Beach, where she painted the president as he pursued his everyday activities. Returning to New York, she continued working,
painting from her sketches as well as images from the news media. She created dozens of drawings, watercolors
and paintings. She was so consumed by this commission that
she stopped her painting for many months after Kennedy’s assassination. Elaine challenged societal roles by refusing
to be defined by a single label in pursuit of her passion. Although she was part of the abstract expressionist
movement, figuration and portraiture were also a mainstay of her work. She searched for the perfect pose for her
portrait subjects, looking for that something in each subject that is characteristic and
not static—that something which we see in a glimpse. Not wanting to be known for just one mode
of expression, she used a variety of canvas sizes and used many different drawing media,
including charcoal, pencil, gouache, and watercolor washes. Today we appreciate her contributions to portraiture,
both painted and drawn, and her appreciation of the fluidity of likeness in modern portraiture. This has been Portrait in a Minute.
