Elaine De Kooning: Horns and Hooves
Reception: Saturday, September 5th 1987
Linking Present with Prehistoric
Phyllis Braff for the New York Times
ELAINE DE KOONING'S 'Cave' paintings capture the imagination with their links to both past and present. Inspired by drawings of animals in prehistoric caves, they touch on the profound as they trigger thoughts about mankind's continuum and about theories of our inherited collective consciousness.
The artist's current show at the Vered Gallery in East Hampton is the largest presentation of this series on Long Island (there have been other shows, during the last three years, in West Berlin, New York, Los Angeles, Baltimore and Miami). The sizable collection allows a good view of her goals and also of the approaches that have remained strong throughout most of her career.
The theme ties in with the artist's lifelong interest in drawing animals, and is not, as one might think, another aspect of the primitivism-in-modern-art syndrome that has received considerable attention in recent years. Still, we constantly see how artists' decisions are a barometer of the time, and turning to effective myth and magic from earlier times does offer reassurance of human values over those of technology. Mrs. de Kooning's attraction to the prehistoric images was triggered by a visit to the well-known Lascaux and Altamira cave sites while on a European vacation several years ago. She had been similarly inspired by bulls in a Mexican arena in the late 50's. The resulting paintings at that time translated animal movement into the broad, swirling gestures of Abstract Expressionism. Adapting these free, vigorous strokes to both portraiture (another aspect of her reputation) and to cave themes seems to have come instinctively, producing works that combine contour definitions with loosely flowing color.
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