Color lithograph, 1923. 275x192 mm; 10 7/8x7 1/2 inches, full margins. Third state (of 3). Edition of 100. Signed in pencil, lower center. Printed and published by Staatliches Bauhaus, Weimar. From Meistermappe des Staatlichen Bauhauses. A superb impression of this scarce lithograph with strong colors.
Provenance: Alfred H. Barr Jr., founding director of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Renee M. Arb, the art critic and founder of University of Massachusetts Boston's art department; thence by descent to the current owner, private collection New York.
The current impression of Der Verliebte, or The Lover was a gift from Alfred H. Barr, Jr. to the art critic and founder of University of Massachusetts Boston's art department, Renee M. Arb, with whom he had a close relationship during the 1940s and 1950s. At the time of this gift, Arb had helped launch the career of painter de Kooning, capturing the essence of his artistic trajectory, and inducing Barr to begin acquiring the artist's work for the MoMA. During her career, at ARTnews, Dr. Arb was credited with being the first to acknowledge Willem de Kooning's work in 1948 in what his wife Elaine de Kooning recalled as a "prophetic" review of the artist's first solo exhibition in New York. Kornfeld 94.
