Exceeding the confines of the canvas in a spectacular explosion of unrestrained brushwork and brilliant hue, East Hampton Garden Party is a singular masterwork from the stunning creative apex of Willem de Kooning’s storied career. Executed in 1975 – 76, this painting marks the pivotal moment of artistic transformation when, after years primarily spent exploring sculpture, de Kooning returned to painting with a newfound passion, resulting in a group of stunning, color-drenched canvases that rank among the finest achievements of his celebrated oeuvre. Achieving a remarkable synthesis of the gestural intensity and veiled figuration of his earlier paintings and the sensuous, ribbon-like lyricism of his late 1980s masterworks, East Hampton Garden Party serves as compelling distillation of this critical moment of artistic shift; nowhere is de Kooning’s unrivaled painterly prowess clearer than in the saturated fields of bright blue and canary yellow that fill the present work, whose shimmering contours offer the subtlest hints of form without ever abandoning resolute abstraction. In its unbridled expression of painterly enthusiasm, the present work speaks to the immense inspiration de Kooning drew from another, newfound source during this time: Emilie S. Kilgore, the young woman who was de Kooning’s close friend and singular muse during this seminal period. Introduced through a chance meeting at a dinner party in the Hamptons, the two were instantly captivated with one another, beginning what would become an intimate friendship spanning many years. Bearing a loving inscription dedicating the present work to Emilie on the occasion of her birthday, East Hampton Garden Party has remained in the Kilgore family collection over four decades; today, this painting emerges as enduring testament, not only of their extraordinary relationship, but of the abstract masterworks that were the result.

Enveloping the viewer in a joyous riot of color and form, East Hampton Garden Party powerfully embodies the exhilarating fervor de Kooning experienced as, fueled by a fresh and unprecedented source of inspiration, he returned to painting in 1975 with newfound creative vigor. In fact, de Kooning and Emilie first crossed paths in August of 1970, when the two were introduced at a summertime dinner party hosted by mutual friends. Despite a significant difference in age, Emilie was powerfully drawn to de Kooning; recalling the evening, she describes: “I was sort of transfixed...I think I was unaware of anything else going on. And we just talked, looking straight at each other for a long, long time. And then he was leaving...and he said, ‘Am I ever going to see you again?’” (Emilie S. Kilgore in: Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan, de Kooning: An American Master, New York 2007, p. 536) The two met outside Guild Hall several days later for a long bike ride, beginning a friendship that would, over the course of the following decade, become one of the most important relationships of the artist’s life; when Emilie returned to Houston at summer’s end, the two began an extended and impassioned written correspondence. Paying homage to their initial meeting, East Hampton Garden Party is one of several carefully selected paintings that de Kooning presented to Emilie over the years; in the letter accompanying one such gift, he declared: “I dedicate all of my paintings to you.” (Ibid, p. 550)

Maintaining the unmistakable traces of de Kooning’s remarkable touch and fluid wrist, the pictorial immediacy and polychromatic intensity of the present work testify to the artist’s continued admiration of the European Post-Impressionists. Indeed, in its mesmerizing vibrancy and fluid grace, the swirling forms of East Hampton Garden Party are particularly evocative of the brilliant, color-soaked landscape of Arcadia as depicted in Matisse’s revered Fauvist masterpiece, Le Bonheur de Vivre of 1905-06; testifying to de Kooning’s profound admiration for the Post-Impressionist master, whose visionary investigation of color and light played a defining role in shaping the development of his practice, the virtuosic abstraction of the present work is perhaps most eloquently summarized by certain descriptions of Matisse’s work: “We are no longer required to read the figures one after the other, but merely invited to let ourselves be invaded by the polychromatic orchestration and rhythmic organization, which have to be apprehended in a single breath, so to speak, rather than gradually perceived through a painstaking build-up of details; the space of a picture is the one we actually breathe in” (Georges Duthuit, “Matisse and Byzantine Space,” Transition 49, no. 5, 1949, pp. 20-37)

Presenting a gleaming topography of saturated hue, East Hampton Garden Party powerfully invokes the effervescent natural beauty of de Kooning’s home in Long Island; indeed, as de Kooning’s friendship with Emilie blossomed, so too did his love for his coastal home, viewed with the fresh gaze of rediscovery. During this period, the gleam of bright sunlight on the ocean, rush of waves crashing onto the sand, bunches of verdant beach grass beside the path—all encapsulated by the present work— captivated and seduced de Kooning, reminding him of his home in Holland. Speaking to Harold Rosenberg in terms highly evocative of the present work, de Kooning describes: “When the light hits the ocean there is a kind of grey light on the water…Indescribable tones, almost. I started working with them and insisted that they would give me the kind of light I wanted. One was lighting up the grass. That became that kind of green. One was lighting up the water. That became that grey. Then I got a few more colors, because someone might be there, or a rowboat or something happening. I did very well with that. I got into painting in the atmosphere I wanted to be in.” (The artist quoted in: Harold Rosenberg, “Interview with Willem de Kooning,” ARTnews 71, September 1972, p. 58)

In its bursts of color and exuberant, gestural brushwork, East Hampton Garden Party epitomizes de Kooning’s canonic paintings of 1975 through 1978, whose rich and saturated surfaces stand among iconic canvases of 20th-century art history; simultaneously, the sensuous curves of de Kooning’s brush, winding across the surface of the present work like so many cresting waves, subtly foreshadow the calligraphic linearity that would define his late masterworks of the following decade. An exquisite encapsulation of this seminal moment, the radiant surface of East Hampton Garden Party ultimately offers the rarest experience of all: an intimate glimpse of de Kooning’s own, inspired world.

Artist

Willem de Kooning