Elaine de Kooning's house becomes a hub for artists

Elaine de Kooning's East Hampton home and studio was recently designated a historic site by the National Park Service.Elaine de Kooning lived an exciting life marked by art movement known as abstract expressionist. At the time, Elaine de Kooning and her artist husband Willem de Kooning had already been living separately for some years. In 1943, Elaine de Kooning married her artist husband Willem de Kooning, however this complicated relationship culminated in their separation, but not divorce, in 1967. The painter never wanted to settle down, but in 1975 she was attracted to the property just purchased, at 55 Alewive Brook Road in East Hampton, Long Island.

In this house he built a studio where he worked for the rest of his life. He painted rigorously in the studio, cigarette in hand, and often on a ladder, while his studio assistants laid out large-scale canvases. It was here that he created some of his most recognizable and monumental paintings, including the Cave Walls and Cave Paintings series (1985–88), inspired by a trip to Lascaux, France. After his death, the house was owned by sculptor John Chamberlain from 1994 to 1998. When Chamberlain moved in, the house was used by painter Richmond Burton. In 2010, businessman Chris Byrne learned that the house was for sale and decided to buy it.

Byrne, who splits his time between Long Island's East End, Manhattan, and Dallas, said, “Today, Elaine's studio practice seems prophetic. We intend to continue to foster this spirit, making the space available to artists and the public, preserving the original structure and its history.” Recognizing the importance of maintaining the site and its importance to the area, two years ago Byrne initiated a bid to have the home listed on the National Register of Historic Places, as declared by the US Department of the Interior. It was granted this status at the end of last year; the official license plate was installed this month. (Currently, the house is open to visitors by appointment only.)

Byrne saw the potential of contemporary artists to awaken dormant creative energies. The entrepreneur studied art when he was young and published an artist's book called The Magician in 2013. Although he had never practiced art full-time, he had a network of artists in place and realized he could allow them to use Elaine's studio as a sort of residence. informal. The first guest artist was Jose Lerma, between the summer and fall of 2011. Since then, Byrne has hosted 28 artists, including Joe Bradley, Sadie Laska, Katherine Bernhardt, Keith Mayerson and Eric Haze, among others. In 2020, Lonnie Holley produced an exhibition of new paintings, works on paper and sculptures, which was shown last year at the nearby Parrish Museum of Art in “Lonnie Holley at Elaine de Kooning House: Everything That Wasn’t White.” ”

Currently, the house is home to sculptor Frank Benson and multidisciplinary artist Laurie Anderson, who makes large-scale paintings. Artists have full access to the property and the option to live and work on site. There's no official schedule, no official rules about how it should work, no requirements for how often artists use the studio. During her lifetime, Elaine de Kooning never received the amount of attention or success that her husband and his famous circle did. But recent scholarship has redirected attention to de Kooning and her colleagues, including a landmark exhibition curated by Gwen Chanzit, “Women of Abstract Expressionism,” which debuted at the Denver Art Museum in 2016 and has toured North Carolina and California. Following the publication of Gabriel's Ninth Street Women in 2018, which chronicled Elaine de Kooning's contributions, Helen Frankenthaler, Grace Hartigan, Lee Krasner and Joan Mitchell, the market bore more fruit. One of Kooning's Cave Paintings from the Alewive studio, Red Bison/Blue Horse (1985/86), sold March 2021 for $562,500, a new artist record. Hartigan's Early November (1959) grossed $1.4 million as of May 2022, while Mitchell's Blueberry (1969) grossed $16.6 million as of May 2018. Although de Kooning's prices remain lower than those of some of her peers, her vision lives on in the hands of others, now with artists in the studio she built for herself. Thanks to Byrne's efforts, Elaine de Kooning's creative space is now visible to all who pass by.