Willem de Kooning, Painter, East Hampton 1983

This is Mariana Cook’s photograph of Willem de Kooning, taken in East Hampton. Look at the painting behind him: that’s pure De Kooning—those swooping lines, the way figuration emerges and dissolves! I wonder what it was like for him, wrestling with the canvas, searching for form in that chaotic dance. Did he ever feel lost, only to find his way again through a single, decisive stroke? I bet. Notice the painting’s surface—it looks like the bare canvas, stained in monochrome. Imagine De Kooning, brush in hand, maybe years before, layering, scraping, and reworking. Each gesture is like a little burst of thought, a feeling made visible. These gestures build up to become an image, that is not quite an image, but something like a feeling. Painters build on each other, you know? De Kooning learned from the past, and now artists learn from him. That's how painting keeps evolving, questioning, and staying alive. It’s less about answers and more about keeping the conversation going.