Willem De Kooning: Abstract Expressionist.

Willem De Kooning: Abstract Expressionist. Morris Plains, NJ: Lucerne Media (800-341-2293), VHS format, 10 minutes, $49.00.

This video, from the publisher's American Painter Series, features the life and work of De Kooning, other abstract expressionists such as Pollock, Kline, and Gorky, and fellow members of the New York school of painting in the 1940s. A well-spoken narrator describes the transition from the Regionalist Movement of Wood, Curry, and Benton, to the mid-century dominance of the Abstract Expressionist School. De Kooning's background as a WPA artist, along with his search for an individual style is documented as paintings and close-up details dissolve from one to another on screen. This film shows the artist's development from early realism through automatic drawing/painting and his re-introduction of the abstracted, often distorted, figure paintings. De Kooning's controversial later works, as Alzheimer's Disease was beginning to affect his mind, are an interesting sidelight. Other artists in the American Painter Series, include videos on Georgia O'Keeffe, Winslow Homer, Mary Cassatt, Norman Rockwell, and Thomas Eakins.