Art, literature & historyUntitled
c. 1950
- Dating
- Approximate date range
- Held at
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Medium
- Black enamel paint on off-white wove paper
- Dimensions
- 48.5 × 65.1 cm (19 1/8 × 25 11/16 in.)
- Collection no.
- 1986.138
- Attribution
- By the artist
Collection: Art Institute of Chicago
About this artwork
Untitled — Willem de Kooning. c. 1950.
Medium: Black enamel paint on off-white wove paper. Dimensions: 48.5 × 65.1 cm (19 1/8 × 25 11/16 in.).
Collection record: Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago. Museum connection according to this source; current display unverified.
Born in Rotterdam, Willem de Kooning entered the United States as a stowaway on a freighter in 1926. He quickly made his way to New York, where he met Arshile Gorky, one of his closest friends. The artist’s first one-man show, held in a gallery in New York in 1948, featured black-and-white enamel compositions, to which the present example is related. By the 1950s, de Kooning was an acknowledged leader of Abstract Expressionism in America.
Description: © Art Institute of Chicago, original record, CC BY 4.0. HTML formatting removed; wording retained. Other artwork metadata: CC0.
Source: official collection record. Metadata selected and normalized by Artline from the source export, accessed 10 September 2026; no museum endorsement. Reproduction rights are separate.
Location checked Sep 10, 2026. This does not indicate whether the work is on display.