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no title, ca. 1970-80 charcoal and oil on vellum 52 x 42 in Collection of Willem de Kooning Revocable Trust
As early as the 1940's, in his growing urge to confound the flow of his painting and keep it constantly in motion, more than to focus and stabilize it, de Kooning might partially cover a painting in process with a barrage of tracings on standard sheets of tracing paper. After he moved into his new studio in 1964, he started making these charcoal tracings on large sheets of vellum cut from a roll. The model for each tracing was a section of one or another of the finished paintings, mostly created in the 1960's and 1970's, that de Kooning kept around his studio to help catalyze his self-dialogue. Occasionally, when he arrived at a configuration he might wish to employ in the future, a tracing was made from a painting in process. More often than not, the subject was part of a painting that visibly incorporated a figure, just as the preliminary charcoal drawings on canvas almost always contained a figure, no matter how abstractly that painting might evolve. Many of these tracings were made on both sides of the vellum so that de Kooning also might be able to revive their mirror image. The side chosen to be transferred to canvas was drawn over from the reverse side onto a section of bare canvas, to become part of the beginning of a new painting. A tracing might also be introduced into a painting in process. On occasion, both sides might be inducted into the formation of a new painting. |
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