WILLEM DE KOONING Untitled (Seated and Reclining Women).
Pencil on light tan wove paper, circa 1965-70. 230x305 mm; 9x12 inches. Signed in pencil, lower left recto. De Kooning (1904-1997) began his well-known Woman series in 1950 and worked on it well into his late career. Many of the earlier paintings in the series are heavily indebted to Picasso's paintings of women, notably in the aggressive deconstruction of the figures and the space around them (meanwhile Picasso's later work from the 1960s onward shows that he saw the groundbreaking Expressionist works of both de Kooning and Pollock). The current drawing, a highly abstracted and strongly gestural figure group, is typical of de Kooning's compositions of the late 1960s. Ex-collection Galerie Maeght Lelong, New York, with the original label on the frame back.
