Autumn/Winter 2022

“At the moment, everyone is trying correct the
past, in that the media worked out ten years ago
that 95 percent of artworks on museum walls
were by white male artists. It was a slightly
different path for me, I was collecting both male
and female – so, I bought Joan Mitchell, Helen
Frankenthaler and Lee Krasner and male artists
as well. Then I bought Elaine de Kooning’s
portrait catalogue and became familiar with the
‘Ninth Street Women’ show, where she and others
were featured, and began thinking, ‘There is a
whole group of women artists who should be
brought back to the fore!’” The excerpts below,
gleaned from Christian’s conversation, provides
a ‘canvas-like window’ onto a few of the artist’s
most famous works.
THE BURGHERS OF AMSTERDAM
AVENUE
One of the major paintings of Abstract
Expressionism was by Elaine de Kooning who
began experimenting with Abstract portraiture
in the 1940s, and continued to do so throughout
her career. Possibly her most famous picture is
named after the famous Rodin sculpture from
1885, The Burghers of Calais. There are all sorts of
Dutch connotations in it. It’s called The Burghers
of Amsterdam Avenue; Amsterdam Avenue runs
up into Harlem. She is Elaine de Kooning, married
to Willem de Kooning, who is Dutch; and she
wants to set it out like a seventeenth-century
portrait, like a Night Watch or an early Rembrandtesque
Dutch or Flemish family scene. When you
Autumn / Winter 2022 • Restoration Conversations 75