Standing Figure
1969; cast 1984
Medium
bronze
Measurements
380.0 × 630.0 × 97.0 cm
Credit Line
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Presented through The Art Foundation of Victoria to the people of Australia in celebration of the Bicentenary 1788-1988 by the National Australia Bank Limited, Founder Benefactor, in association with the Victorian Arts Centre Trust, 1987
© Willem de Kooning/ARS, New York. Licensed by Copyright Agency, Australia
Gallery location
Not on display
About this work
The strength and vitality of Standing figure clearly convey why Willem de Kooning is widely regarded as one of the leading exponents of Abstract Expressionism. Both the turbulent movement beneath the sculpture’s surface and its enormous, massive forms barely conceal the sense of harnessed energy contained in the gestural, brushstroke-like sweeps of its ‘limbs’. Not unlike the artist’s retention of figurative elements in his celebrated painting series, Women, of the early 1950s, this painting perfectly embodies the tensions
between figuration and abstraction. Standing figure is a unique undertaking in Willem de Kooning’s oeuvre. While the artist’s interest had not been sustained by earlier forays in sculpture, an encounter in 1969 with the sculptor Herschell Emmanuel in Italy was to result in a body of three-dimensional Expressionist works. During a visit to Emmanuel’s bronze foundry in Rome, de Kooning was encouraged to model a number of small-scale forms that were subsequently cast.
It is this group of thirteen works, known as the Little Sculptures, that were revisited by the artist more than a decade later after English sculptor Henry Moore enthused about the works’ potential for scaling-up to monumental proportions. Cast at New York’s Tallix Foundry in 1984, using a combination of ‘lost wax’ method
and sand casting, Standing figure fully realizes the possibilities of large-scale sculpture, both engulfing and embracing the viewer with its tentacle-like forms.
Artwork Details
Place/s of Execution
United States
Inscription
cast in base in rear l.c.: de Kooning / 1/7 / © 1969-1984 / TALLIX PEEKSKILL.N.Y. TX (monogram)
Accession Number
S10-1987
Department
International Sculpture
This digital record has been made available on NGV Collection Online through the generous support of Digitisation Champion Ms Carol Grigor through Metal Manufactures Limited