1983 Signed Willem deKooning Whitney Retrospective Poster “Woman and Bicycle”

Details

Description

Signed 1983 offset lithograph exhibition poster from the Willem de Kooning retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art. The … Read more Signed 1983 offset lithograph exhibition poster from the Willem de Kooning retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art. The poster features de Kooning’s celebrated 1953 painting Woman and Bicycle and bears an original signature in blue-green marker.
The poster is presented in a matte metallic silver-colored frame with museum-quality plexiglass.

Provenance
The work was given to its current owner, Portuguese-American artist Joao de Brito, by his close friend, artist Marie Jean Sarni (“Meike”). Sarni was a longtime friend of Elaine de Kooning, Willem de Kooning’s wife and an important Abstract Expressionist painter in her own right.

Sarni’s friendship with Elaine de Kooning spanned approximately two decades and grew out of their shared involvement in the mid-century American art world. While studying at the Massachusetts School of Art, Sarni was strongly influenced by Willem de Kooning’s work and later developed personal and artistic relationships with both Willem and Elaine de Kooning.

Sarni moved within artistic circles on both the East and West Coasts, connecting the world of New York Abstract Expressionism with artists associated with the Bay Area and San Francisco Beat generation.

The poster subsequently passed to Joao de Brito, an internationally exhibited and collected Portuguese-American painter known for plein-air landscapes and portraiture. Influenced by French Fauvism and California Impressionism, de Brito is recognized for vibrant color and richly layered oil paintings that emphasize light, movement, and energy.

The direct personal provenance, together with the original signature, distinguishes this example from unsigned versions of the 1983 Whitney exhibition poster.

A certificate of authenticity, signed by Joao de Brito will be included. See less