The de Kooning Story

When de Kooning died aged 92, America saw him as almost Picasso-like in stature. His private life however, was a tragic wreck. In his later life, even with Alzheimers, he kept painting. The Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan book "De Kooning: An American Master" poses the questions: "What is one to make of these works? Are they heroic strivings in the face of diminishing capacity, a great last flowering like the cutouts of Henri Matisse? Or are they little more than a childs scrawls put down by a man groping his way through a gathering mental twilight?"

This is an exemplary biography, weaving the evolution of his work and the harrowing, depressing chronicle of his incapacitating alcoholic bouts and womanising. Not a pretty tale but one in which scholarship and writing shine with integrity. Buy with your Xmas book tokens.
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