Mark Borghi

Elaine de Kooning

Bullfight

Bullfight

1959

 
Oil on canvas

78 x 130.5 inches (198.12 x 331.47 cm)

Signed, titled and dated verso

 

 

Ex-collection:
The estate of the artist and by descent until the present

 

About the Painting:
Following her separation in 1957, Elaine left New York for a teaching appointment as visiting Professor at the University of New Mexico. This gave her the opportunity to immerse herself in the characteristic color and space of the Southwestern landscape. Following her impressionable visit to Juarez, Mexico where she attended many bullfights, Elaine’s palette shifted to bolder and brighter colors, and her format changed from the typical vertical orientation to the horizontal. Her studio burst with energetic paintings based on the bullfights and the expansive Southwestern landscape. In 1961 her work was included in the Whitney Annual.