Easter Monday
Willem De Kooning
WILLEM DE KOONING, 1956. OIL AND NEWSPAPER TRANSFER ON CANVAS.
So named for the day it was completed, Easter Monday is an abstract representation of urbanity and a masterpiece of De Kooning’s gestural style. An underlayer of newsprint is all but obscured by sparring colours and forms, seemingly fighting for space on the canvas with each brushstroke evidence of an emotional reaction. It makes up a series of 10 large scale works De Kooning exhibited the spring of its creation, and of all of its counterparts it feels the most like its season. A work exploring decay and regeneration, over a literal backdrop of media and information, it captures something of spring in the city, the heat starting to rise, life re-entering in anger and dialogue that brings destruction with it.