"Gesture is so well executed in Elaine's portraits that in a number of them she deliberately erased some or all of the facial features. This is true in several images of the painter's brother Conrad Fried, and of her fellow painter Fairfield Porter. An early critic, otherwise complimentary, wondered if she was unable to draw or paint faces. Nothing could be further from the truth, as many of her other portraits attest. But Elaine often said the face's features change with age, while the way one sits, stands or moves is more of a constant throughout one's life. Her figures often seem to be quiet and in movement simultaneously."
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Quote of Margaret Randall, 2015, in 'New Mexico Mercury'
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Elaine_de_Kooning
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Elaine de Kooning
Elaine de Kooning (March 12, 1918 - February 1, 1989) was an Abstract Expressionist and American Figurative Expressionist woman-painter in the post-World War II era. She wrote extensively on the art of the period and was an editorial associate for Art News magazine. On December 9, 1943, she married painter Willem de Kooning.
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