By 1959, Elaine de Kooning had moved into a loft at 791 Broadway and quickly befriended a neighbor, Gay Sourian, who was included in the long evenings at the iconic Cedar Bar with Elaine and her circle of artists and writers. Their friendship was lifelong and included Gay’s assisting with the care of Willem de Kooning in his last years. A gift from the artist to Gay, the artwork has remained within the family to the present day.
In the mid-1960s, Elaine de Kooning began spending time in the Catskills at a farmhouse and plot of land that had been within the family since the 1840s. It was a productive period in her career, notable for an important series of monochrome landscape sketches, of which the present lot is a fine example.
Text Source: Cathy Curtis, A Generous Vision: The Creative Life of Elaine de Kooning, New York, 2017, online
signed, dedicated and dated "to Gay and Harry, With Love, E. E de K '65" lower edge gouache and ink on paper 17 3/4 x 23 3/8 in. (45.1 x 59.4 cm) Executed in 1965.