Elaine de Kooning

American b. 1918 – d. 1989 Egon Score: 64.8

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Egon research · Artist market profile

The market, in context.

Explore Elaine de Kooning’s auction history alongside the exhibitions, collections and gallery relationships behind the market.

Research by Egon · Latest section update 2026-09-25 · Sources & research notes

Market research

Auction history & pricing

Explore the market context →

Gallery relationships

Representation & history

Explore representation →

Institutional research

Collections & exhibitions

Read holdings, exhibition history and their qualifications in context.

Read the institutional research →

Egon investment scores

Liquidity

6/10

How easily works can be bought and sold at auction

Institutional

6/10

Museum collections, biennials, and institutional recognition

Momentum

7/10

Recent price trends, gallery moves, and market buzz

Market position

Research updated 2026-09-25

Auction record context

Charge (1960): $1,071,000 with fees ($850,000 hammer against a $600,000 high estimate), Sotheby's New York, November 2022. Her first evening-sale appearance; MutualArt still lists it as the record as of September 2026. A record price is not a price floor.

Auction highlights

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Research records
Work	Result	Venue and date
Untitled (Charging Bull Series)	$27,940	Christie's, Jul 2026
Untitled	$12,065	Christie's, Jul 2026
Untitled (Charging Bull Series), 1959	$27,940	Christie's, Jul 17, 2026

39 further auction entries on record for Elaine de Kooning — inside Egon.

Pricing

Primary market

Two dealer channels are now visible. (1) Berry Campbell, New York (estate gallery) sells paintings, works on paper and prints. Prices are not posted publicly, so contact Berry Campbell for current pricing. The one public data point is Artnet News's report that Berry Campbell sold two Elaine de Kooning paintings for $75,000 each at Art Basel Miami Beach in December 2025; The Art Newspaper names Catskill Series (1965) and a Cave work among those sales. (2) Olney Gleason, New York: ARTnews's fall 2026 market preview reports 'the dealers' (the passage quotes Nick Olney) will show Elaine de Kooning paintings 'priced into the low seven figures' at Independent 20th Century (Sept 24-27, 2026). Independent's gallery page confirms Olney Gleason is giving her a solo presentation there. This resolves the previously unattributed ARTnews claim. Asking prices are not realized prices, and no public transaction above $1.071M exists.

Historical context

Before 2020 the market was dominated by works on paper and small canvases. The artist record stood at $101,500 from 1996 until the early 2020s, despite the 2015 National Portrait Gallery retrospective and the 2017 Oxford University Press biography: a documented lag between institutional recognition and market repricing.

2021 2022 repricing

The record moved from $101,500 (1996) to $562,500 (Christie's Postwar to Present, Red Bison/Blue Horse) and then to $1,071,000 (Sotheby's evening sale, Charge, Nov 2022; MutualArt still lists this as the record). That is roughly a 10x re-rating of the top of the market in about two years.

Current 2025 2026 levels

Major canvases

Realized: $500,000 to $1.1M at auction for significant mature oils and enamels. The latest is Untitled (1949, oil and enamel on Masonite, 35 3/4 x 23 3/4 in.), Sotheby's Contemporary Day, 15 May 2026, lot 359, est. $200,000-$300,000. Artsy's results feed lists US$537,600 (+115% vs estimate), matching the $537,600 premium-inclusive figure in our own database: two independent provenances agree. Asking: Olney Gleason's Independent 20th Century paintings are reported in the low seven figures (Sept 2026), not yet corroborated by any public sale above $1.071M since 2022.

Temporal summary

Pre-2020 top of market: about $101,500. 2021-2022: $562,500, then $1,071,000. 2025-2026 realized range across all work types in our major-house sample: $4,128 to $537,600, average $79,288 across 9 priced lots (premium-inclusive). Primary market, Dec 2025: two paintings at $75,000 each (Berry Campbell, dealer-reported). Primary asking, Sept 2026: low seven figures for paintings (Olney Gleason, asking, not transacted). The $75k and low-seven-figure primary points are not comparable works; they show a very wide spread by period, scale and significance.

Prints and multiples

Low four figures to low five figures. Tamarind lithographs (e.g. the Jardin du Luxembourg suite, 1977; a Jardin de Luxembourg I / VI / Sunday Afternoon group was offered at New Orleans Auction Galleries on 13 Apr 2026, price not retrieved) and Crown Point Press aquatints trade mostly at regional houses. Do NOT blend these with unique-work pricing.

Small sheets and sketches: $4,000 - $15,000 (Phillips, Sep 2025, Untitled at $4,128 is the practical floor at a major house)

Mid scale and secondary canvases

About $50,000 - $250,000. Supported by Berry Campbell's reported $75,000 primary sales of two paintings at ABMB (Dec 2025). Small oils on Masonite (e.g. Standing Bull, 1958, 15 1/8 x 19 3/8 in.; Self-Portrait #1, 1942, 23 1/2 x 17 7/8 in.) were offered at Christie's on 20 Nov 2025; their results were not retrieved.

Works on paper cave and bull series

About $12,000 - $45,000 at major houses in 2025-2026. Recent premium-inclusive prices cluster at $12,000-$41,000: Passage Wall (Cave #167), Christie's Sep 2025, $40,640; Cave #179, Christie's Feb 2026, $22,860; Untitled (Charging Bull Series), 1959, Christie's 17 Jul 2026, $27,940 (Artsy: +179% vs estimate); Bull - Verónica, Sotheby's Oct 2025, $12,700; Untitled (Cave Series), 1986, 17 Jul 2026, $12,065 (Artsy: +42% vs estimate). MutualArt reports works on paper averaging about $32,145 over a recent trailing 12-month period.

Liquidity

Depth

Thin at the top: only a few works have crossed $500,000, and the $1M threshold has been reached once (Charge, 2022). Depth is much better in the $10k-$50k works-on-paper band, where most transactions happen. Supply is continuous across houses: Artsy's feed shows lots on Nov 20, 2025 (two Christie's oils on Masonite), Dec 16, 2025 (three lots), Feb 27, 2026, Apr 13, 2026 (New Orleans Auction Galleries), May 15, 2026 and Jul 17, 2026 (two lots). Regional houses also active: Clarke (Feb 2026), New Orleans Auction Galleries (Apr 2026), Helmuth Stone (Nov 2025).

Assessment

Moderate and stable. MutualArt lists about 430 works offered at auction across her recorded history; artnet lists 497 artworks. Our database has 9 major-house lots in the 2025-2026 window, but it demonstrably misses at least the two Christie's 20 Nov 2025 oils (Standing Bull; Self-Portrait #1). A realistic all-venue annual volume is 20-40 lots, with only a handful of six-figure-plus lots a year.

Sell through

Our auction database shows 100% canonical sell-through across 7 settled lots (every catalogued lot at least 90 days old has settled). Scope: four major houses, 2025 onward only. This is not full-market sell-through; it excludes regional houses and all pre-2025 sales. The database also omits some major-house lots (Christie's Nov 20, 2025), whose outcomes were not retrieved. Historical buy-in data was not retrieved. No significant unsold major lots were found in the sources checked, but that is not proof none exist.

Collector base

Composition

US private collections (many works acquired directly from the artist, per recurring provenance lines), estate and family holdings (a large share of her output stayed with the estate and has rarely been shown), long-hold collectors (the May 2026 Sotheby's Untitled came from the estate via Washburn Gallery and was held by the MacDonnells from 1998), institutional buyers, and a growing group of collectors deliberately building holdings of women Abstract Expressionists.

Named collectors

Christian Levett — The Levett Collection / FAMM (Femmes Artistes du Musée de Mougins), France; owns The Bull (1959), a touring highlight of 'Abstract Expressionists: The Women'
Anonymous consignor of 'Energy and Gesture: Women of the New York School from an Important Private Collection', Sotheby's, Feb 2026 — evidence of dedicated single-owner collections in this niche
Historic: Thomas B. Hess and the ARTnews-era circle; Mrs. Fairfield Porter (donor to the Met)
Heather James Fine Art clients — dealer-reported demand cohort
Christian Levett — The Levett Collection / FAMM (Female Artists of the Mougins Museum), France; owns The Bull (1959), a touring highlight of 'Abstract Expressionists: The Women'. Levett has publicly framed the strategy as building a museum-level collection of Mitchell, Krasner, Frankenthaler and Elaine de Kooning at prices far below male peers (Art Basel Stories)
Jannine and Robert MacDonnell — consignors of the Untitled offered at Sotheby's Contemporary Day Auction, 15 May 2026, lot 359
Christian Levett - The Levett Collection / FAMM (Female Artists of the Mougins Museum), France. Owns The Bull (1959), a touring highlight of 'Abstract Expressionists: The Women'. Levett has publicly framed his aim as building a museum-level collection of Mitchell, Krasner, Frankenthaler and Elaine de Kooning at prices far below male peers (Art Basel Stories)
Anonymous consignor of 'Energy and Gesture: Women of the New York School from an Important Private Collection', Sotheby's, Feb 2026: evidence of dedicated single-owner collections in this niche
Heather James Fine Art clients: dealer-reported demand group
Jannine and Robert MacDonnell: consignors of Untitled (1949), Sotheby's Contemporary Day Auction, 15 May 2026, lot 359; acquired from Washburn Gallery in 1998 (Sotheby's provenance)
Christian Levett - The Levett Collection / FAMM (Femmes Artistes du Musée de Mougins), France; owns The Bull (1959), a touring highlight of 'Abstract Expressionists: The Women'

Demand signal note

Independent 20th Century (Sept 2026) scheduled a 'Market Insight: The Women of Abstract Expressionism' talk with Sotheby's specialist Kathleen Hart, Nick Olney (Olney Gleason), Martha Campbell (Berry Campbell) and Puck's Marion Maneker. The trade is actively marketing the category.

Auction history

Record

Prior records

1996: a charcoal sketch of John F. Kennedy related to the presidential portrait sold for $101,500 — the record stood for roughly 25 years, through the 2015 NPG retrospective and the 2017 biography
Christie's New York 'Postwar to Present' mid-season sale: Red Bison/Blue Horse (1985-86, oil and charcoal on canvas, held in one collection for three decades) sold for $562,500 against a $250,000 estimate, setting a new record at the time, in a 120-lot sale that made $23M with an 86% sell-through
Untitled (Black Mountain #13) (1948), enamel and paper collage mounted on canvas, sold for $207,900 at Christie's New York — more than eight times the low estimate
Untitled (Black Mountain #13) (1948), enamel and paper collage mounted on canvas, 89.2 x 97.8 cm, sold for $207,900 at Christie's New York — more than eight times the low estimate (HENI news; sale date not stated in the source retrieved)
1996: a charcoal sketch of John F. Kennedy related to the presidential portrait sold for $101,500; the record stood for roughly 25 years
Christie's New York 'Postwar to Present': Red Bison/Blue Horse (1985-86, oil and charcoal on canvas) sold for $562,500 against a $250,000 estimate, a record at the time
Untitled (Black Mountain #13) (1948), enamel and paper collage mounted on canvas, 89.2 x 97.8 cm, sold for $207,900 at Christie's New York, more than eight times the low estimate (HENI news; sale date not stated)

Lifetime volume

MutualArt lists about 430 artworks offered at auction; artnet lists 497 artworks. Active secondary venues also include Rago, Clarke Auction Gallery, New Orleans Auction Galleries, Helmuth Stone, Simpson Galleries and other regional houses; LiveAuctioneers lists 135 price results.

Works on paper record: about $441,000 (MutualArt aggregate)

Sell through and buy ins

Our auction database (2025 onward, Christie's, Sotheby's, Phillips, Bonhams): 9 sold lots in the recent price sample; 100% canonical sell-through across 7 settled lots. This population covers major houses only from 2025, and it omits at least two Christie's Nov 2025 lots. It says nothing about regional-house buy-ins or the pre-2025 record. A full Artnet/Artprice pull is still recommended for a complete bought-in history.

Market position

Segment

Benefits from the sustained re-rating of women Abstract Expressionists. Dealers are now testing two price levels at once: Berry Campbell's reported $75k painting sales (ABMB 2025) and Olney Gleason's low-seven-figure fair asks (Sept 2026). Heather James Fine Art has described 'a huge expanse of zeros' still separating her results from Willem de Kooning's.

Macro context

The $1M-$10M band has been the strongest-performing segment; her top works sit at its entry point. Christie's May 2026 two-session sale totalled $1.1 billion. ARTnews's September 2026 preview describes mixed dealer sentiment, with some collectors 'energized' and some 'burned', so strength in her segment should not be read as a uniformly strong market.

Peer comparables

Trades well below Joan Mitchell, Helen Frankenthaler, Lee Krasner and Agnes Martin, and in the same broad band as Grace Hartigan, Perle Fine, Mary Abbott (Hill Dancers, 1948, $275,000 primary at ABMB 2025 via Berry Campbell), Yvonne Thomas (Caribbean Shore, 1959, $375,000 primary) and Charlotte Park, at the upper end of that group at auction.

Primary vs secondary gap

Olney Gleason's reported low-seven-figure asks (Independent 20th Century, Sept 24-27, 2026) sit at or above the single $1.071M auction result from 2022 and about twice the May 2026 $537,600. If they clear, the record is likely to be retested; if not, the gap is an overhang. An asking price is not a transaction, and no sale report had been retrieved as of Sept 25, 2026.

Investment outlook

Risks

Top-end depth is thin: one $1M+ result (Nov 2022, now nearly four years old). Most transactions are modest works on paper, capping the average (our 2025-2026 major-house sample averages $79,288). Estate release of previously unseen material, explicitly a feature of the Berry Campbell show, could increase supply. The 'women AbEx' thematic bid is a segment trend that could cool. NO catalogue raisonné has been identified, a real connoisseurship and authentication gap for a market moving into seven figures; regional offerings of JFK-subject oils warrant particular diligence. No Tier 1 mega-gallery representation. Low-seven-figure asks are unconfirmed by any public sale above $1.071M.

Catalysts

Independent 20th Century (Sept 24-27, 2026; Olney Gleason solo, Berry Campbell group), under way now: watch for sale reports. The Berry Campbell survey, Oct 29 - Dec 19, 2026 (a dealer show, therefore a market event). The AFA/FAMM tour through March 2028. Continued scholarly attention since the 2017 biography.

Trajectory

Upward, but the top has been proven only once. Record progression: 1996 $101,500; c.2021 $562,500; Nov 2022 $1,071,000. 2025-2026 results consistently clear high estimates, led by the $537,600 Untitled (1949) at Sotheby's in May 2026. That is strong evidence of live demand in the $10k-$550k band, not proof of a durable seven-figure market.

Note on egon news label

CONFIRMED AGAIN. Our provisional label for the July 2026 Artsy item was 'Retrospective'. The quote wins: it is a COMMERCIAL GALLERY EXHIBITION at Berry Campbell (Oct 29 - Dec 19, 2026), a market event that must not raise the institutional score.

Institutional presence

Research updated 2026-09-25

Upcoming

Berry Campbell Gallery, New York — Elaine de Kooning survey with the JFK portrait series, opening October 2026
Abstract Expressionists: The Women continues to Arizona State University Art Museum, Tempe, and additional venues to be announced, through April 2027
Two lots listed as upcoming in the Egon auction database
Berry Campbell Gallery, New York — Elaine de Kooning survey opening October 29, 2026, spanning 1948-1988 and including the JFK portrait series (COMMERCIAL GALLERY EXHIBITION, not a museum show)
Abstract Expressionists: The Women — CORRECTED ITINERARY: Grinnell College Museum of Art, Grinnell, Iowa, September 17, 2026 – January 3, 2027; Mobile Museum of Art, Mobile, Alabama, January 30 – April 25, 2027; The Frick Pittsburgh, June 12 – September 26, 2027; Tampa Museum of Art, October 14, 2027 – March 5, 2028 (American Federation of Arts itinerary)
MutualArt reports her work currently on view at NSU Art Museum, Fort Lauderdale (aggregator claim; the specific exhibition was not verified this pass)
Berry Campbell Gallery, New York - Elaine de Kooning survey with the JFK portrait series, opening October 2026
Berry Campbell, New York (Chelsea) - Elaine de Kooning, October 29 - December 19, 2026, paintings and works on paper 1948-1988 including the JFK series (COMMERCIAL GALLERY EXHIBITION, not a museum show; dates per GalleriesNow)
Abstract Expressionists: The Women - ON VIEW NOW at Grinnell College Museum of Art, Grinnell, Iowa (Grinnell's own page: Sept 17, 2026 - Jan 2, 2027; Artnet and FAMM: Sept 19, 2026 - Jan 3, 2027); then Mobile Museum of Art, Mobile AL (Jan 30 - Apr 25, 2027); The Frick Pittsburgh (June 12 - Sept 26, 2027); Tampa Museum of Art (Oct 14, 2027 - Mar 5, 2028)
Independent 20th Century, The Breuer, New York, Sept 24-27, 2026: Olney Gleason solo presentation; Berry Campbell group presentation 'The Women of Stable Gallery' (ART FAIR, commercial; not institutional validation)
MutualArt reports her work currently on view at NSU Art Museum, Fort Lauderdale (aggregator claim; the specific exhibition was not verified)

Exhibitions

Significant group

Ninth Street Show, New York, 1951 — the exhibition credited with launching the New York School
Expressionism, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, 1956, travelling to ICA Boston and the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo
Young American Painters, organized by MoMA (curator Dorothy Miller), 1956-58, travelling to 16 cities including Winnipeg (not shown in New York)
Pittsburgh International (now Carnegie International), 1956
Art Institute of Chicago, 1964
American Self-Portraits 1670-1973, National Portrait Gallery
Focus, Philadelphia Museum of Art; Whitney Museum of American Art group presentations
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC, 1980
Guild Hall Museum, East Hampton, 1990
Better Half, Better Twelfth: Women Artists in the Collection, Sheldon Museum of Art, 2010
Abstract Expressionists: The Women — organized by the American Federation of Arts from The Levett Collection / FAMM, curated by art historian Ellen G. Landau; nearly 50 works by 32 artists spanning the 1930s to the 1970s; two-year, five-museum US tour, August 2025 – April 2027. Venues include Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, St. Louis (Sept 2025 – Jan 2026); Muscarelle Museum of Art, Williamsburg VA (Jan 23 – Apr 26, 2026); National Museum of Women in the Arts; and Arizona State University Art Museum, Tempe, with further venues to be announced. Her The Bull (1959) is a featured work.
Related women-AbEx programming 2026 at NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale and Weatherspoon Art Museum, UNC Greensboro
Perseverance and Women Choose Women (with Frampton Co), Berry Campbell Gallery
Women Across America: 1945-1979, Eric Firestone Gallery, 40 Great Jones Street, New York, May 12 – July 31, 2026
Paul Kasmin Gallery (now Kasmin), New York, April 19 – June 9, 2018 — group exhibition on the mid-century South Fork circle including Elaine de Kooning, Mary Abbott, Nell Blaine, Perle Fine, Frankenthaler, Freilicher, Krasner, Mitchell, Park, Parsons and Wilson (commercial gallery)
Abstract Expressionists: The Women — organized by the American Federation of Arts from The Levett Collection / FAMM, curated by Ellen G. Landau; nearly 50 works by 32 artists. CORRECTED THIS PASS: the tour is SEVEN US venues running August 2025 – March 2028, not five venues to April 2027. Confirmed venues: Wichita Art Museum, Wichita KS (Aug 8 – Nov 15, 2025, first venue); Muscarelle Museum of Art, College of William & Mary, Williamsburg VA (Jan 29 – Apr 25, 2026); Speed Art Museum, Louisville KY (May–Aug 2026; sources give May 16, May 22 and May 23 start dates and Aug 29/30 close — exact dates unresolved); Grinnell College Museum of Art, Grinnell IA (Sept 17, 2026 – Jan 3, 2027); Mobile Museum of Art, Mobile AL (Jan 30 – Apr 25, 2027); The Frick Pittsburgh (June 12 – Sept 26, 2027); Tampa Museum of Art (Oct 14, 2027 – Mar 5, 2028). Her The Bull (1959) is a featured work. The previously recorded venues Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, National Museum of Women in the Arts and Arizona State University Art Museum do NOT appear in any itinerary retrieved this pass and are treated as contradicted (see evidence_notes). This is a GROUP exhibition from a private lender — exhibition evidence, not museum acquisition.
Ninth Street Show, New York, 1951 - the exhibition credited with launching the New York School
Annual Exhibition 1961: Contemporary American Painting, Whitney Museum of American Art, Dec 13, 1961 - Feb 4, 1962 (Whitney artist page)
Women of Abstract Expressionism, Denver Art Museum, 2016 (Denver Art Museum blog on the artist, Sept 15, 2016, published alongside the exhibition; Berry Campbell calls the show 'landmark'); travelled onward
Labyrinth of Forms: Women and Abstraction, 1930-1950, Whitney Museum of American Art, Oct 9, 2021 - Mar 13, 2022 (Whitney artist page)
Women Across America: 1945-1979, Eric Firestone Gallery, 40 Great Jones Street, New York, May 12 - July 31, 2026
Paul Kasmin Gallery (now Kasmin), New York, April 19 - June 9, 2018 - group exhibition on the mid-century South Fork circle (commercial gallery)
Abstract Expressionists: The Women - organized by the American Federation of Arts from The Levett Collection / FAMM, curated by Ellen G. Landau; nearly 50 paintings by 32 women artists from 1936-1977 (Grinnell). SEVEN US venues, August 2025 - March 2028. Organizer (AFA) itinerary as retrieved Sept 25, 2026: Wichita Art Museum, Aug 23 - Nov 30, 2025; Muscarelle Museum of Art, William & Mary, Jan 23 - Apr 26, 2026; Speed Art Museum, Louisville, May 16 - Aug 30, 2026; Grinnell College Museum of Art (Sept 2026 - Jan 2027); Mobile Museum of Art (Jan 30 - Apr 25, 2027); The Frick Pittsburgh (June 12 - Sept 26, 2027); Tampa Museum of Art (Oct 14, 2027 - Mar 5, 2028). Secondary sources give conflicting dates for several venues (see evidence_notes). Her The Bull (1959) is a featured work. A GROUP exhibition from a private lender, not a museum acquisition.

Solo and monographic

Stable Gallery, New York — solo exhibition, 1950s
Montclair Art Museum, New Jersey — 1973
Elaine de Kooning Paintings 1955-1965, Joan T. Washburn Gallery, New York; also Major Paintings, Sculpture & Drawings at the same gallery
Phoenix II, Washington DC (solo)
Guild Hall Museum, East Hampton, NY — 1989
Elaine de Kooning: Portraits, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, March 13, 2015 – January 10, 2016 — 66 portraits, including nine drawings and paintings of John F. Kennedy; sitters included Frank O'Hara, Allen Ginsberg, Harold Rosenberg, Merce Cunningham, Fairfield Porter and Willem de Kooning
Berry Campbell Gallery, New York — October 2026, paintings and works on paper spanning four decades including the JFK series; billed as her first major solo presentation since the 2015-16 Smithsonian show, with many works not publicly exhibited since her death. NOTE: commercial gallery exhibition, not a museum retrospective.
President John F. Kennedy: An Exhibition of Portraits and Sketches by Elaine de Kooning, Kansas City Art Institute and School of Design, 1965 (catalogue cited by the National Portrait Gallery)
Elaine de Kooning: The Time of the Bison, Gruenebaum Gallery, New York, May 3–31, 1986 (Smithsonian Libraries catalogue record)
Elaine de Kooning: Portraits, The Art Gallery, Brooklyn College, February 28 – April 19, 1991 (Smithsonian Libraries catalogue record)
Berry Campbell Gallery, New York — opening October 29, 2026, paintings and works on paper spanning 1948-1988 including the JFK series; billed as her first major solo presentation since the 2015-16 Smithsonian show, with many works not publicly exhibited since her death. NOTE: commercial gallery exhibition, not a museum retrospective.
Stable Gallery, New York - solo exhibition, 1950s
Montclair Art Museum, New Jersey - 1973
Elaine de Kooning: The Time of the Bison, Gruenebaum Gallery, New York, May 3-31, 1986 (Smithsonian Libraries catalogue record)
Guild Hall Museum, East Hampton, NY - 1989
Elaine de Kooning: Portraits, The Art Gallery, Brooklyn College, February 28 - April 19, 1991 (Smithsonian Libraries catalogue record)
Elaine de Kooning: Portraits, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, March 13, 2015 - January 10, 2016 - 66 portraits, including nine drawings and paintings of John F. Kennedy
Berry Campbell, New York - October 29 - December 19, 2026, paintings and works on paper spanning 1948-1988 including the JFK series; billed as her first major solo presentation since the 2015-16 Smithsonian show, with many works not shown publicly since her death. NOTE: commercial gallery exhibition, not a museum retrospective.
Olney Gleason solo presentation, Independent 20th Century art fair, New York, Sept 24-27, 2026 (ART-FAIR SOLO BOOTH, commercial; not a museum exhibition)

Publications

Cathy Curtis, A Generous Vision: The Creative Life of Elaine de Kooning, Oxford University Press, 2017 — the first full-scale biography, inaugurating the Oxford Cultural Biographies series; independent academic-press scholarship, not gallery-sponsored
Elaine de Kooning: Portraits, National Portrait Gallery exhibition catalogue, 2015
Her own substantial body of ARTnews criticism (essays on Gorky, Kline, Rothko, Hofmann) — a primary-source literature in its own right
Archival: James Graham & Sons gallery records and Betty Jane Thiebaud film interview material, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution
NO catalogue raisonné identified — a notable scholarly and market-infrastructure gap for an artist whose top works now exceed $1M
Brandon Brame Fortune, Ann Eden Gibson and Simona Čupić, Elaine de Kooning: Portraits, National Portrait Gallery exhibition catalogue, 2015 (authorship confirmed via the Smithsonian Libraries record)
Elaine de Kooning and the Bacchus Motif, Arts Club of Chicago (Smithsonian Libraries record; a publication about/by the artist, NOT a museum artwork holding)
Elaine de Kooning, 'Painting a Portrait of the President', ARTnews, Summer 1964 — her own primary account of the JFK commission; republished and discussed by ARTnews
Archival: James Graham & Sons gallery records and Betty Jane Thiebaud film interview material, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution; Smithsonian Libraries artist file 'Elaine De Kooning, 1918-1989'
NO catalogue raisonné identified — a notable scholarly and market-infrastructure gap for an artist whose top work has exceeded $1M
Cathy Curtis, A Generous Vision: The Creative Life of Elaine de Kooning, Oxford University Press, 2017 - the first full-scale biography and the first title in the Oxford Cultural Biographies series; independent academic-press scholarship, not gallery-sponsored
Elaine de Kooning, 'Painting a Portrait of the President', ARTnews, Summer 1964 - her own primary account of the JFK commission
Her own substantial body of ARTnews criticism (essays on Gorky, Kline, Rothko, Hofmann, David Smith) - a primary-source literature in its own right
Archival: Elaine de Kooning papers, circa 1959-2013, 1.1 linear feet (letters, writings, a sketch of John F. Kennedy, notes, a sound recording, documents about Willem de Kooning), Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution; also James Graham & Sons gallery records and Betty Jane Thiebaud film interview material at the AAA; Smithsonian Libraries artist file 'Elaine De Kooning, 1918-1989'
Collection: Elaine Fried de Kooning is recorded as a collection/owner entry in the Arshile Gorky Catalogue Raisonné (Arshile Gorky Foundation) - provenance evidence for her role as a collector of Gorky, not a catalogue of her own work
NO catalogue raisonné of Elaine de Kooning's own work identified (search 'Elaine de Kooning catalogue raisonné', Sept 25, 2026, returned only the Gorky catalogue and aggregators) - a notable scholarly and authentication-infrastructure gap for an artist whose top work has exceeded $1M and whose paintings are now being asked in the low seven figures
NO catalogue raisonné identified - a notable scholarly and market-infrastructure gap for an artist whose top works now exceed $1M

Museum collections

National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC
Tier
Tier 1 national (portraiture-specialist, non-encyclopedic)
Holdings
13 drawings and paintings, which the Smithsonian describes as the largest museum collection of her portraits. Includes the John F. Kennedy (1963) oil, 101 1/2 x 44 in., on long-term view in 'America's Presidents', and a Self-portrait, oil on Masonite, 1946, NPG.94.81
Source URL
https://npg.si.edu/blog/john-f-kennedy-elaine-de-kooning
Credit line
credit line unknown (not retrieved; the NPG blog page on the JFK portrait and the legacy exhibition page https://npg.si.edu/exh/brush/elaine.htm do not publish one)
Status note
Documented. Wikidata separately records 6 works, a community-curated floor rather than a holdings count; the 13-work figure is the Smithsonian's own statement.
Accession number
NPG.94.81 (Self-portrait, 1946); others not retrieved
Institution tier
2
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Tier
Tier 1 encyclopedic
Holdings
Includes the portrait 'Fairfield Porter' (Wikidata records 2 works)
Credit line
Gift of Mrs. Fairfield Porter, 1978
Status note
Gift route; initiation unresolved. A historical 1970s accession made when her market was thin, so the curatorial-initiation test is a weak instrument here.
Institution tier
1
Museum of Modern Art, New York
Note
Both published credit lines are donor gifts: gift route, initiation unresolved. Normal for mid-20th-century print and drawing accessions; should not be over-read.
Tier
Tier 1
Holdings
14-15 works online, including 'Unused preparatory drawing for In Memory of My Feelings' (1967, ink on acetate, acc. 2202.1967.50) and the aquatint 'Les Eyzies' (1985, Crown Point Press, acc. 467.1985)
Credit lines
- Gift of the artist
- Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Edmond Luyckx
Institution tier
1
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA), Canada
Note
A museum PURCHASE using donor-designated funds (curatorial initiation), and the clearest international public-collection acquisition in the record.
Tier
Tier 1 national (Canada)
Holdings
Bill at St. Mark's (1956), oil on canvas, 183 x 109.7 cm
Credit line
purchase, gift of Roslyn Margles in memory of her husband Max H. Margles
Institution tier
2
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
Tier
Tier 1
Holdings
26 prints and 1 drawing recorded in Wikidata (community-curated FLOOR, not a verified holdings count)
Credit line
credit line unknown (not retrieved)
Institution tier
2

View 18 more records

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
Tier
Tier 1
Holdings
Juarez, 1958, oil on Masonite, 35 3/4 x 47 7/8 in. (90.8 x 121.6 cm)
Source URL
https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/artist/elaine-de-kooning
Credit line
credit line unknown (not published on the artist page checked, https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/artist/elaine-de-kooning; object record not fetched)
Status note
DOCUMENTED this pass via the Guggenheim's Collection Online artist page (previously attributed third-party claims only). Accession 83.3133 is read from the image file name.
Accession number
83.3133
Institution tier
1
Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)
Tier
Tier 2
Holdings
Collection holdings cited by Artsy
Credit line
credit line unknown (not retrieved)
Status note
Unresolved: aggregator claim, not confirmed against LACMA's own database.
Institution tier
2
National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington DC
Tier
Tier 2 specialist national
Holdings
Jardin du Luxembourg, 1977, colour lithograph on paper, 30 x 22 in.
Credit line
Gift of Mr. [remainder of donor name truncated in the accessible source - recorded as a gift; not inferred further]
Institution tier
2
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Tier
Tier 1 national
Holdings
2 works recorded (Wikidata floor)
Credit line
credit line unknown (not retrieved)
Status note
Wikidata floor only. Smithsonian name-matched API records are mostly Smithsonian Libraries bibliographic material, NOT artwork holdings, and are not attributable to SAAM or the Hirshhorn.
Institution tier
2
Georgia Museum of Art, Athens
Tier
Tier 2 university museum
Holdings
5 works recorded (Wikidata floor); institutional link via her 1976-78 Lamar Dodd Visiting Professorship
Credit line
credit line unknown (not retrieved)
Institution tier
3
Denver Art Museum
Tier
Tier 2
Holdings
Bullfight, 1959, oil on canvas, 77-5/8 x 131-1/4 x 1-1/8 in.
Source URL
https://www.denverartmuseum.org/en/blog/women-abstract-expressionism-artist-elaine-de-kooning
Credit line
Denver Art Museum: Vance H. Kirkland Acquisition Fund.
Status note
DOCUMENTED this pass (previously a gallery-sourced claim). Credit line from the museum's own caption. Fund purchase = curatorial initiation; acquisition date not stated. One of her largest known canvases.
Institution tier
2
Minneapolis Institute of Art
Tier
Tier 2
Holdings
1 work recorded (Wikidata floor)
Credit line
credit line unknown (not retrieved)
Institution tier
2
Buffalo AKG Art Museum
Tier
Tier 2
Holdings
1 work recorded (Wikidata floor); also cited by Crown Point Press (as Albright-Knox)
Credit line
credit line unknown (not retrieved)
Institution tier
2
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
Tier
Tier 2
Holdings
1 work recorded (Wikidata floor)
Credit line
credit line unknown (not retrieved)
Institution tier
2
Brauer Museum of Art, Valparaiso University
Tier
Tier 3 university
Holdings
1 work recorded (Wikidata floor)
Credit line
credit line unknown (not retrieved)
Institution tier
3
Sheldon Museum of Art, Lincoln, NE
Tier
Tier 2 university
Holdings
Confirmed via exhibition provenance - 'Better Half, Better Twelfth: Women Artists in the Collection', 2010
Credit line
credit line unknown (not retrieved)
Institution tier
3
Harry S. Truman Library & Museum, Independence, MO
Tier
Federal presidential library
Holdings
The 1963 John F. Kennedy portrait produced under the library's commission
Credit line
commissioned work - credit line unknown (not retrieved)
Institution tier
3
FAMM (Femmes Artistes du Musée de Mougins), France / The Levett Collection
Tier
PRIVATE museum - explicitly NOT counted as a public-collection acquisition on the institutional axis
Holdings
The Bull (1959), acrylic and collage on Masonite, 30 1/2 x 35 1/4 in.
Credit line
private collection - no public credit line
Status note
Duplicate of the FAMM / Levett entry above (same institution, same work, different name spelling); not a second holding.
Memorial Art Gallery, University of Rochester, NY
Tier
Tier 3 regional/university museum
Holdings
John Ashbery (1975), oil on canvas, 86.4 x 76.2 cm, accession 1999.3
Source URL
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ashbery_(Elaine_de_Kooning)
Credit line
credit line unknown (not retrieved)
Status note
Reported via Wikipedia; not confirmed against the museum's own record.
Institution tier
3
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Tier
Tier 2 encyclopedic
Holdings
1 work recorded (Wikidata floor); MutualArt separately says the MFA Boston has featured her work
Credit line
credit line unknown (not retrieved)
Status note
UNRESOLVED: being 'featured' is not ownership; the Wikidata record was not confirmed against the MFA database.
Institution tier
2
Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington DC (collection dispersed 2014, principally to the National Gallery of Art)
Tier
Historical
Holdings
Cited by Crown Point Press as holding her paintings
Source URL
https://crownpoint.com/artist/elaine-de-kooning/
Credit line
credit line unknown (not retrieved)
Status note
UNRESOLVED: historical claim on a stale page; any surviving holding would now be at a successor institution.
FAMM (Female Artists of the Mougins Museum), France / The Levett Collection
Tier
PRIVATE museum - explicitly NOT counted as a public-collection acquisition on the institutional axis
Holdings
The Bull (1959), acrylic and collage on Masonite, 30 1/2 x 35 1/4 in.; lender to the AFA touring exhibition (FAMM online collection record CL947 lists the tour venues)
Source URL
https://collection.famm.com/en/collection/CL947
Credit line
private collection - no public credit line
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Tier
Tier 1
Holdings
NEW THIS PASS: Untitled, c.1947, pencil drawing (the Whitney states '1 work in the Whitney's collection')
Source URL
https://whitney.org/artists/3524
Credit line
credit line unknown (not published on the artist page checked, https://whitney.org/artists/3524)
Status note
Documented via the Whitney's own artist page; object page https://whitney.org/collection/works/7894 not fetched. Accession possibly 92.7 (inferred from the image file name, unverified).
Accession number
object id 7894
Institution tier
1

Credit line reading

Where credit lines are published, most are individual gifts ('Gift of the artist', 'Gift of Mrs. Fairfield Porter, 1978', 'Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Edmond Luyckx'). There are now TWO documented museum purchases: the MMFA ('purchase, gift of Roslyn Margles in memory of her husband Max H. Margles') and, new this pass, the Denver Art Museum's Bullfight (1959) ('Denver Art Museum: Vance H. Kirkland Acquisition Fund.'). CAVEAT: this is largely historical collecting, contemporaneous with a thin market, so the curatorial-initiation test is a weak instrument. For a historical artist the stronger evidence is the depth of national institutional holdings: now documented at four of the named Tier 1 museums (MoMA, Met, Guggenheim, Whitney) plus the NGA, NPG (13 works), Denver and the MMFA. Federal cultural recognition (Truman Library commission, NRHP listing of her studio) adds to this. Most other holdings still carry an unretrieved credit line: that means unknown, not a donor gift, and not proof of nonpublication.

Awards and recognition

Official presidential portrait commission, Harry S. Truman Library (JFK, 1962-63) — a rare federal-level commission for a woman artist of her generation
Lamar Dodd Visiting Professor, University of Georgia, 1976-1978
Teaching appointments at Yale University Graduate School, Carnegie Mellon, University of California Davis, University of New Mexico and Parsons School of Design
Elaine de Kooning House and Studio, East Hampton, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, January 26, 2022 (NRHP ref. 100007372)
No competitive prize or fellowship record (Guggenheim Fellowship, NEA, AAAL) surfaced in the searches conducted — recorded as a gap, not a negative finding
Official presidential portrait commission, Harry S. Truman Library (JFK, 1962-63) - a rare federal-level commission for a woman artist of her generation
No competitive prize or fellowship record (Guggenheim Fellowship, NEA, AAAL) surfaced in the searches conducted - recorded as a gap, not a negative finding

Career & Biography

Research updated 2026-09-25

Identity

Born

March 12, 1918, Brooklyn, New York, USA (Guggenheim collection page: 'b. 1918, Brooklyn, New York'; Whitney artist page, artnet, Wikipedia, Berry Campbell and Eric Firestone concur; Britannica's 1920 is an outlier; 1918 is the consensus)

Died: February 1, 1989, Southampton, New York (lung cancer)

Gender: Female

Status: Deceased; work administered by the Elaine de Kooning Trust (© Elaine de Kooning Trust appears on Denver Art Museum and Berry Campbell images)

Full name: Elaine Marie Catherine de Kooning (née Fried)

Nationality: American

Primary locations

New York City (10th Street / Greenwich Village milieu); later East Hampton, NY. Her house and studio at 55 Alewive Brook Road was added to the National Register of Historic Places on January 26, 2022 (NRHP ref. 100007372)

Getty ulan reconciliation

ULAN 500001599 is the right person: the Whitney's artist page cross-references that ULAN ID to her. But the ULAN record's birthplace ('1918 in Pennsylvania' / 'Born in Brooklyn, Pennsylvania') is contradicted by the Guggenheim and Whitney pages (Brooklyn, New York) and is disregarded. The ULAN roles (painter, portraitist, printmaker, writer, teacher, sculptor) agree with the sources.

Other roles

Major art critic and editorial associate at ARTnews; taught at many US universities throughout her career; a social catalyst and advocate for her peers who materially shaped how Abstract Expressionism was received. Her own 1964 ARTnews account of painting Kennedy ('Painting a Portrait of the President') is still a primary document of the commission.

Career timeline

1951: Included in the Ninth Street Show, the exhibition widely credited with launching the New York School; founding member of the Eighth Street Club

1957

Separates from Willem de Kooning (never divorced); begins a long run of visiting teaching posts to support herself, starting at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque

1989: Dies in Southampton; Guild Hall Museum, East Hampton, holds a solo exhibition that year

1991

Posthumous 'Elaine de Kooning: Portraits', The Art Gallery, Brooklyn College, February 28 - April 19, 1991 (Smithsonian Libraries catalogue record)

2017

First full-scale biography, Cathy Curtis, 'A Generous Vision' (Oxford University Press), the first title in the Oxford Cultural Biographies series

2022: First appearance in a Sotheby's evening auction; artist record set with Charge (1960), $1,071,000

1950s

Stable Gallery (Eleanor Ward, opened 1953 on West 58th Street) shows and supports her; solo exhibition there; included in Walker Art Center's Expressionism (1956, travelling to ICA Boston and Albright-Knox) and MoMA's Dorothy Miller-organized Young American Painters (1956-58, 16 cities)

1980s

Cave-painting series (Lascaux, Altamira, Les Eyzies) in oil, ink and print media, continuing until her death; shares East Hampton life with Willem de Kooning; solo 'The Time of the Bison', Gruenebaum Gallery, New York, May 3-31, 1986

Dec 2025

Art Basel Miami Beach: Berry Campbell reports selling two Elaine de Kooning paintings at $75,000 each (Artnet News); The Art Newspaper names Catskill Series (1965) and a Cave work among its sales

Oct 2026

Berry Campbell, New York (Chelsea): survey of paintings and works on paper spanning 1948-1988, including the JFK portrait series, October 29 - December 19, 2026 (GalleriesNow listing). A commercial gallery exhibition, not a museum retrospective

1938-1943: Studies with, then marries, Willem de Kooning (married 1943); part of the emerging downtown avant-garde

1962-1963

Commissioned to paint John F. Kennedy for the Harry S. Truman Library; sittings begin in Palm Beach on December 28, 1962; produces hundreds of rapid sketches and more than twenty canvases. After the assassination the series becomes the defining body of her career. Her own account, 'Painting a Portrait of the President', appears in ARTnews in 1964

1976-1978

Lamar Dodd Visiting Professor, University of Georgia, Athens; paints the first large Bacchus canvases in her UGA campus studio, inspired by a 19th-century sculpture in the Jardin du Luxembourg, Paris; summer 1977 in Cortona, Italy, with the UGA study-abroad programme

2015-2016: National Portrait Gallery retrospective 'Elaine de Kooning: Portraits' (66 works): the decisive posthumous re-evaluation

2025-2028

Included in the AFA/FAMM touring exhibition 'Abstract Expressionists: The Women', seven US venues from August 2025 to March 2028. On view at Grinnell College Museum of Art, Iowa, as of September 2026

Sept 2026

Olney Gleason (New York) gives her a solo presentation at Independent 20th Century, The Breuer, 945 Madison Avenue, September 24-27, 2026, with paintings reported priced into the low seven figures (ARTnews). Berry Campbell shows her at the same fair in the group presentation 'The Women of Stable Gallery'

1948-1950s

Editorial Associate, then influential critic, at ARTnews under editor Thomas B. Hess; profiles and essays on Gorky, Kline, Rothko, Hofmann, David Smith and others

Late 1940s

Summer at Black Mountain College (1948); early collage and abstraction (e.g. Untitled (Black Mountain #13), 1948; Untitled, c.1947 pencil drawing, now at the Whitney; Untitled, 1949, oil and enamel on Masonite, sold at Sotheby's May 2026)

1960s-1970s

Teaching at University of California Davis, Carnegie Mellon, Yale Graduate School, Parsons School of Design and others; bullfight, basketball-player and portrait series

Personal life note

Her critical and market reputation was long subordinated to her husband's. Both her writing career and her championing of his work delayed recognition of her own painting, which is the central theme of the posthumous reassessment. The National Portrait Gallery's early exhibition text notes that her own career did not flourish until the couple separated in 1957.

Education and training

Erasmus Hall High School, Brooklyn
Hunter College, New York — briefly enrolled, withdrew 1937
Leonardo da Vinci Art School (1937), studying with Conrad Marca-Relli, who became a close friend
American Artists School, New York (1938)
Private drawing instruction from Willem de Kooning beginning 1938
Black Mountain College summer (1948) with Willem de Kooning — formative for her engagement with Action Painting
Hunter College, New York: briefly enrolled, withdrew 1937 (confirmed by the Guggenheim biography)
American Artists School, New York (1938), where she met Willem de Kooning (Denver Art Museum biography)
Private drawing instruction from Willem de Kooning from 1938
Black Mountain College summer (1948) with Willem de Kooning: formative for her engagement with Action Painting

Validation note sept 2026

Full refresh (Sept 25, 2026). Identity, education and influences are unchanged and re-confirmed against the Guggenheim, Whitney and Denver Art Museum pages. The ULAN birthplace error is flagged. New career events: the Olney Gleason solo at Independent 20th Century (Sept 24-27, 2026), Berry Campbell's ABMB 2025 sales, and confirmed closing dates for the Berry Campbell survey (Oct 29 - Dec 19, 2026). The '2025-2027' timeline entry (five venues to April 2027) is cleared as superseded.

Studio practice and methods

Worked from rapid, repeated drawing, with hundreds of sketches feeding a single painted subject, rather than from a static pose. By her own 1964 account she could start and finish a life-size portrait in a single sitting after preliminary sketch sessions. She sought the 'instantaneous illumination of recognition' rather than literal likeness, attending to how a sitter carried themselves. Fluent across oil, enamel, acrylic, collage on Masonite, charcoal, pencil, ink and wash, watercolour, lithography (Tamarind), serigraphy and aquatint (Crown Point Press).

Influences context contemporaries

Context

First-generation Abstract Expressionism / New York School; also American Figurative Expressionism. She widened what Abstract Expressionism could hold by applying its gestural language to portraiture and observed subjects

Influences

Willem de Kooning (teacher and husband), Arshile Gorky, Franz Kline's calligraphic gesture, old-master and Ingres-inflected portraiture, Paleolithic cave painting (Lascaux, Altamira, Les Eyzies), bullfighting and sport as bodily movement, classical sculpture (Bacchus)

Contemporaries and circle

Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, Mark Rothko, Arshile Gorky, Hans Hofmann, Conrad Marca-Relli, Fairfield Porter, Frank O'Hara, John Ashbery, Allen Ginsberg, Harold Rosenberg, Merce Cunningham, Thomas B. Hess, dealer Eleanor Ward (Stable Gallery); peer group of women of the New York School: Lee Krasner, Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell, Helen Frankenthaler, Perle Fine, Mary Abbott, Charlotte Park, Jane Freilicher, Nell Blaine, Ethel Schwabacher, Mercedes Matter, Yvonne Thomas

Artistic Profile

Research updated 2026-09-25

Evolution

1940s

Early naturalistic self-portraits (Self-Portrait #1, 1942, oil on Masonite, 23 1/2 x 17 7/8 in., offered at Christie's Nov 2025; NPG Self-portrait, 1946, oil on Masonite). Then Cubist-derived structure, pencil abstraction (Untitled, c.1947, Whitney), collage and enamel experiments (Untitled (Black Mountain #13), 1948, $207,900 at Christie's) and enamel-and-oil on Masonite abstraction (Untitled, 1949, 35 3/4 x 23 3/4 in., $537,600 at Sotheby's May 2026); also very small oils on board (Untitled, 1949, 10 x 8 in.)

1950s

Full Action Painting idiom; loose, high-energy portraits of the downtown circle; Bill at St. Mark's (1956, MMFA); bullfight works from c.1958 (Standing Bull, 1958, oil on Masonite); Juarez (1958, Guggenheim, oil on Masonite, 35 3/4 x 47 7/8 in.); The Bull (1959, FAMM); Bullfight (1959, Denver Art Museum, oil on canvas, about 77 x 131 in.)

1960s

More restrained and meticulous handling; the JFK commission coincides with her peak; portraiture becomes an inquiry into the instant of recognition; Charge (1960) sits at the top of her market; Catskill Series landscapes (1964-65; a Catskill Series (1965) painting reported sold by Berry Campbell at ABMB 2025)

1970s

Bacchus series at large scale; Tamarind lithographs; Firenze ink works (Firenze #18, 1973, brush and ink); portraits including John Ashbery (1975)

1980s

Cave-painting series: animal forms in oil, ink and print, palimpsestic and archaeological in feeling; 'The Time of the Bison' (Gruenebaum, 1986; Time of the Bison #22, 1986, at auction Dec 2025); Acapulco Bay (1983); continues until her death in 1989

Signature series

John F. Kennedy portraits (1962-63) — hundreds of sketches, 20+ canvases
Bullfight / Bull / Verónica series
Basketball players
Bacchus (from 1976)
Cave series (Lascaux, Altamira, Les Eyzies; 1980s)
Portraits of the New York School circle
Bullfight / Bull / Verónica / Charging Bull series
John F. Kennedy portraits (1962-63) - hundreds of sketches, 20+ canvases
Bullfight / Bull / Verónica / Charging Bull series (c.1958-60, revisited in 1970s pastels)
Catskill Series landscapes (mid-1960s)
Cave series (Lascaux, Altamira, Les Eyzies; 1980s) including The Time of the Bison

Influences lineage

Willem de Kooning's drawing discipline; Gorky; the calligraphic black-and-white of Kline and Motherwell; an East Asian sumi-e brush-and-wash sensibility; the Ingres-inflected portrait tradition; and direct, deliberate citation of Paleolithic cave art.

Themes and subjects

Portraiture — Frank O'Hara, Allen Ginsberg, Harold Rosenberg, Merce Cunningham, Fairfield Porter, Willem de Kooning, Pelé, and above all John F. Kennedy
Bodily movement and athletic action — basketball players, bullfights (Bull / Verónica series)
Paleolithic cave painting — Lascaux, Altamira, Les Eyzies; bison, reindeer, bulls, horses (Cave series, 1980s)
Bacchus — from a 19th-century sculpture in the Jardin du Luxembourg, Paris (from 1976)
Landscape (Catskill series, Callicoon Woods, 1964)
Mythological subjects and cultural icons
Portraiture — Frank O'Hara, John Ashbery (1975, Memorial Art Gallery), Allen Ginsberg, Harold Rosenberg, Merce Cunningham, Fairfield Porter, Willem de Kooning, Pelé, and above all John F. Kennedy
Bodily movement and athletic action — basketball players, bullfights (Bull / Verónica / Charging Bull series)
Paleolithic cave painting — Lascaux, Altamira, Les Eyzies; bison, reindeer, bulls, horses (Cave series, 1980s; the 1986 Gruenebaum solo was titled 'The Time of the Bison')
Bacchus — from a 19th-century sculpture in the Jardin du Luxembourg, Paris (from 1976); subject of its own Arts Club of Chicago publication
Portraiture - Frank O'Hara, John Ashbery (1975, Memorial Art Gallery), Allen Ginsberg, Harold Rosenberg, Merce Cunningham, Fairfield Porter, Willem de Kooning, Pelé, early self-portraits (1942, 1946), and above all John F. Kennedy
Bodily movement and athletic action - basketball players, bullfights (Bull / Verónica / Charging Bull series; Denver's monumental Bullfight, 1959)
Place and travel - Juarez (1958), Firenze (1973), Acapulco Bay (1983)
Paleolithic cave painting - Lascaux, Altamira, Les Eyzies; bison, reindeer, bulls, horses (Cave series, 1980s)
Bacchus - from a 19th-century sculpture in the Jardin du Luxembourg, Paris (from 1976)
Landscape (Catskill series, Callicoon Woods, 1964-65)

Movements and periods

Abstract Expressionism (first generation)
New York School
American Figurative Expressionism
Action Painting
Postwar, 1945-1989 — NOTE: the fingerprint's 1945-1970 bracket should be EXTENDED to 1989; the Cave series is a major 1980s body of work
Postwar, 1945-1989 — NOTE: the fingerprint's 1945-1970 bracket should be EXTENDED to 1989; the Cave series is a major 1980s body of work. The Berry Campbell survey's own 1948-1988 span independently supports this four-decade bracket.
Stable Gallery circle of women Abstract Expressionists (Eleanor Ward, 1950s)
Postwar, 1942-1989 - NOTE: the fingerprint's 1945-1970 bracket should be EXTENDED at both ends: the 1942 self-portraits precede it, and the Cave series is a major 1980s body of work. The Berry Campbell survey's own 1948-1988 span supports the multi-decade bracket.

Techniques and mediums

Oil on canvas; oil and charcoal on canvas (Red Bison/Blue Horse, 1985-86)
Acrylic and collage on Masonite (The Bull, 1959)
Enamel and paper collage mounted on canvas (Black Mountain works, 1948)
Oil and gouache, and watercolour, on paper
Black and sepia ink with wash on toned or cream heavyweight paper — wet-into-wet pooling with calligraphic overdrawing, deckle-edged sheets
Printmaking: lithography at Tamarind (Jardin du Luxembourg, 1977, ed. 70), aquatint at Crown Point Press (Les Eyzies, 1985), serigraphy
Working method: hundreds of rapid sketches per subject feeding multiple finished canvases
Oil on board at small scale (Untitled, 1949, 10 x 8 in.)
Oil and ink on paper (Untitled (Charging Bull), c.1958); oil pastel and paper collage on paper (Charging Bull, 1960)
Oil and gouache, and watercolour, on paper (Cave #179)
Charcoal on paper (JFK studies, 1962)
Working method: hundreds of rapid sketches per subject feeding multiple finished canvases; by her own 1964 account a life-size portrait could be started and finished in a single sitting after preliminary sketch sessions
Oil on canvas; oil and charcoal on canvas (Red Bison/Blue Horse, 1985-86); monumental oil on canvas (Bullfight, 1959, Denver, about 77 x 131 in.)
Oil on Masonite (Self-Portrait #1, 1942; Standing Bull, 1958; Juarez, 1958, Guggenheim); oil and enamel on Masonite (Untitled, 1949)
Pencil drawing (Untitled, c.1947, Whitney); charcoal on paper (JFK studies, 1962)
Oil and gouache, and watercolour, on paper (Cave #179); brush and ink (Firenze #18, 1973); pastel on paper (Bull - Verónica, 1975)
Black and sepia ink with wash on toned or cream heavyweight paper - wet-into-wet pooling with calligraphic overdrawing, deckle-edged sheets

Fingerprint verification

Confirmed

Abstract Expressionism, the Gestural register, Postwar period labels, ink and drawing mediums, monochromatic and muted palettes (for the ink works), negative space, all-over composition, figure-ground, and lost/soft edges all still hold against the sources. The sumi-e / Kline calligraphic reading and the deliberate Paleolithic citation remain independently supported. The 1986 'Time of the Bison' solo and continuing Cave-series auction supply (Time of the Bison #22; Untitled (Cave Series), 1986) confirm the cave material as a named, sustained late body of work.

Signature works extension

Egon's centroid list (Untitled; Passage Wall (Cave #167); Cave #179; Untitled (Catskill Series); Cave #44 Reindeer, Cave Wall) is driven by auction supply and consists almost entirely of late works on paper. The art-historically canonical works are: John F. Kennedy (1963, National Portrait Gallery); Charge (1960, auction record $1,071,000); Bullfight (1959, Denver Art Museum, museum fund purchase); Juarez (1958, Guggenheim); Bill at St. Mark's (1956, MMFA); The Bull (1959, Levett Collection/FAMM); Red Bison/Blue Horse (1985-86); Untitled (Black Mountain #13) (1948); Untitled (1949, oil and enamel on Masonite, $537,600, May 2026); John Ashbery (1975, Memorial Art Gallery); and the Bacchus canvases.

Disagreements and extensions

SCALE: 'easel-scale' understates her. The fingerprint skews to works on paper because that is what dominates auction supply. Her art-historical importance rests on PAINTINGS at near-life scale — the NPG John F. Kennedy is 101 1/2 x 44 in.; Bill at St. Mark's (MMFA) is 183 cm tall; the Bacchus canvases are described as immense.
MOOD: 'contemplative' as a dominant mood is a works-on-paper artifact. The painted work is characterized by kinetic energy and vivacity; period and current critics reach for 'radiant', 'vivacious', 'energetic'.
COLOUR: a significant omission. The monochromatic/muted reading reflects the ink drawings only. The JFK portraits are an explosion of green and gold, and she described her aim as communicating the sitter's brightness and high colour. Chromatic intensity belongs in her visual signature.
SUBJECT: portraiture and the human figure should be elevated to a PRIMARY theme — 'narrative' understates it. She is described as best known for her portrayals of men.
MEDIUM: add COLLAGE as a technical signal (enamel and paper on canvas; acrylic and collage on Masonite) and PRINTMAKING (Tamarind, Crown Point Press) as a distinct output category with distinct, much lower pricing.
SCALE: 'easel-scale' understates her. The fingerprint skews to works on paper because that is what dominates auction supply. Her art-historical importance rests on PAINTINGS at near-life scale — the NPG John F. Kennedy is 101 1/2 x 44 in.; Bill at St. Mark's (MMFA) is 183 cm tall; the Bacchus canvases are described as immense. Countervailing evidence added this pass: she also worked very small (Untitled, 1949, 10 x 8 in.; Charging Bull, 1960, 10 x 12 in.), so the range is wide rather than uniformly large.
MOOD: 'contemplative' as a dominant mood is a works-on-paper artifact. The painted work is characterized by kinetic energy and vivacity; period and current critics reach for 'radiant', 'vivacious', 'energetic'. Qualification: the 1960s portraits are documented as more restrained, so mood is period-dependent.
COLOUR: a significant omission. The monochromatic/muted reading reflects the ink drawings only. The JFK portrait is described as an explosion of green and gold, and Sotheby's cataloguing of her pastel bull works notes bright blues, yellows and reds. Chromatic intensity belongs in her visual signature.
MEDIUM: add COLLAGE as a technical signal (enamel and paper on canvas; acrylic and collage on Masonite; oil pastel and paper collage on paper) and PRINTMAKING (Tamarind, Crown Point Press) as a distinct output category with distinct, much lower pricing.
SCALE: 'easel-scale' understates her. The fingerprint skews to works on paper because they dominate auction supply. Her art-historical importance rests on PAINTINGS at near-life or mural scale: the NPG John F. Kennedy is 101 1/2 x 44 in.; Bill at St. Mark's (MMFA) is 183 cm tall; Denver's Bullfight (1959) is about 77 x 131 in.; the Bacchus canvases are described as immense. Countervailing evidence: she also worked small (Untitled, 1949, 10 x 8 in.; Standing Bull, 1958, 15 x 19 in.), so the range is wide rather than uniformly large.
MOOD: 'contemplative' as the dominant mood is an artifact of the works on paper. The painted work is marked by kinetic energy and vivacity, though the 1960s portraits are documented as more restrained, so mood depends on period.
SUBJECT: portraiture and the human figure should be raised to a PRIMARY theme; 'narrative' understates it.
MEDIUM: add COLLAGE and ENAMEL (enamel and paper on canvas; oil and enamel on Masonite; acrylic and collage on Masonite) and MASONITE as a recurrent 1940s-50s support, plus PRINTMAKING (Tamarind, Crown Point Press) as a distinct output category with distinct, much lower pricing.
PERIOD: the 1945-1970 bracket omits both the early 1940s self-portraits and the 1980s Cave series.

Style and visual language

Gestural, high-velocity mark-making applied to observed subjects. Where most Abstract Expressionists abandoned the figure, de Kooning kept it and let the brush dissolve it. Sitters are built from patchwork strokes and lost edges, faces are often summarized or left blank, and the body's posture and carriage do the work of likeness. Her painted portraits surround the sitter with animated strokes that create a sense of movement. The handling TIGHTENS in the 1960s: Hyperallergic's reading of the NPG show notes that by the early 1960s her Abstract Expressionist technique had become more restrained, seeking to arrest moments of recognition. 'High-velocity' therefore describes the 1950s rather than the whole career. The bullfight canvases (Denver's Bullfight, 1959; The Bull, 1959) push the gestural idiom to near-abstraction at large scale. In the works on paper, black and sepia ink washes pool wet-into-wet under calligraphic overdrawing, producing all-over fields in which negative space acts as form.

Critical Reception

Research updated 2026-09-25

Critical reception

Lifetime

Respected within the New York School as both painter and critic, but persistently framed in relation to her husband. Fairfield Porter's judgement that her images of men were sympathetic and 'frighteningly acute' is the most-quoted contemporary assessment. Her ARTnews criticism made her a shaper of the movement's reception, not only a subject of it. Her 1964 ARTnews essay on painting Kennedy is a standard citation.

Gaps and caveats

No 2026 Artforum, frieze, Art in America or Brooklyn Rail review of her work surfaced in the searches conducted (scope: this pass and the previous two). A Sept 2026 search for Brooklyn Rail / Hyperallergic / Art in America reviews returned only Willem de Kooning coverage and older Hyperallergic pieces. 'Artists to watch' signals do not apply to a historical artist. The equivalent leading indicators are museum touring inclusion and academic-press scholarship, both present. Most 2025-2026 coverage is exhibition- and market-driven journalism (fair reports, market previews) rather than independent scholarship. The Berry Campbell survey (opens Oct 29) is the most likely trigger for fresh reviews.

Recent coverage 2026

Artnet News (Feb 2026) on 'Abstract Expressionists: The Women', reproducing The Bull, with Landau's framing; Forbes (Chadd Scott, March 20, 2026) and an Observer review (March 2026) on the same tour; Artforum news (June 12, 2026) on Independent 20th Century; Artsy editorial (Katie White, July 29, 2026) on the JFK series' New York showing; Independent HQ feature 'The Untold Stories of Independent 20th Century' (Aug/Sept 2026) placing her within Eleanor Ward's Stable Gallery circle; ARTnews fall 2026 market preview (Sept 2026) on Olney Gleason's low-seven-figure asks; TheCollector, '5 Most Important Works by Elaine de Kooning' (Anastasiia Kirpalov, Sept 17, 2026), a popular explainer rather than criticism. Late-2025 fair reports (Artnet News, The Art Newspaper, Artsy, Artlyst) record Berry Campbell's ABMB sales of her paintings.

Posthumous reassessment

The 2015-16 National Portrait Gallery retrospective was the turning point. Hyperallergic's extended review read the JFK series as daring and anti-ceremonial. It traced how her Abstract Expressionist handling had become more restrained by the early 1960s as the work tried to arrest moments of personal recognition. A companion piece on the early portraiture discussed the 1942 self-portraits, one of which (Self-Portrait #1) came to auction at Christie's in Nov 2025. Smithsonian Magazine framed the commission as one that broke the rules of presidential portraiture. Reviewers consistently note the gender politics implied by the show's title.

Recurring critical themes

Recovery of a woman artist eclipsed by a famous husband; the legitimacy of figuration within Abstract Expressionism; her dual role as artist and critic; her place in Eleanor Ward's Stable Gallery circle of women; and the persistent gap between her art-historical importance and her market and institutional standing.

Publications and media

Cathy Curtis, A Generous Vision (Oxford University Press, 2017) — first biography; discussed publicly at the CUNY Graduate Center with New Yorker staff writer Claudia Roth Pierpont; endorsed by Patricia Albers, biographer of Joan Mitchell
Hyperallergic, 'Recurring Waves of Arrival: Elaine de Kooning's Portraits, from Loft Dwellers to JFK', plus a companion piece 'Instant Illuminations: Elaine de Kooning's Early Portraiture'
Smithsonian Magazine, 'Why Elaine de Kooning's Portrait of JFK Broke All the Rules'
Washington Diplomat review of the National Portrait Gallery exhibition
Artnet News, ARTnews, Artsy, Forbes, Observer, ArtDaily, Christie's Daily, AnOther
Britannica and New Georgia Encyclopedia entries — reference-level canonization
The Art Story artist monograph page
ARTnews, 'A President, Seen From Every Angle: Elaine de Kooning on Painting JFK, in 1964' — republication of her own account
Artnet News, 'Abstract Expressionists: The Women Rewrites a Male-Dominated Canon' (Christian Levett / Ellen G. Landau feature)
Artsy, 'Elaine de Kooning's JFK portrait series to go on view in New York this fall' (Katie White, July 29, 2026)
ARTnews, New York fall 2026 market-season preview citing low-seven-figure asks for her paintings at Independent 20th Century
Art Basel Stories, 'Are women artists finally getting their due?' — Christian Levett on collecting Mitchell, Krasner, Frankenthaler and Elaine de Kooning
Cathy Curtis, A Generous Vision (Oxford University Press, 2017) - first biography; discussed publicly at the CUNY Graduate Center with New Yorker staff writer Claudia Roth Pierpont; endorsed by Patricia Albers, biographer of Joan Mitchell
Britannica and New Georgia Encyclopedia entries - reference-level canonization
ARTnews, 'A President, Seen From Every Angle: Elaine de Kooning on Painting JFK, in 1964' - republication of her own account
ARTnews, 'Some Collectors Feel Energized, Some Burned' - New York fall 2026 market-season preview (Olney Gleason's low-seven-figure asks at Independent 20th Century)
Art Basel Stories, 'Are women artists finally getting their due?' - Christian Levett on collecting Mitchell, Krasner, Frankenthaler and Elaine de Kooning
Artforum, 'Independent 20th Century Announces Details of 2026 Fair at the Breuer Building' (June 12, 2026)
Independent HQ, 'The Untold Stories of Independent 20th Century' (2026) - Stable Gallery women context
Artnet News, 'At Miami Basel, Dealers Notch Big Sales' (Dec 4, 2025); The Art Newspaper, ABMB opening sales report (Dec 2025); Artlyst ABMB 2025 market report (Jan 2026)
TheCollector, '5 Most Important Works by Elaine de Kooning' (Sept 17, 2026)
Denver Art Museum blog, 'Women of Abstract Expressionism Artist Elaine de Kooning' (Sarah Lillis, Sept 15, 2016)
National Museum of Women in the Arts artist profile (page dated July 2, 2026)

Academic discourse and positioning

Now securely positioned as a first-generation New York School painter (Ninth Street Show participant, founding member of the Eighth Street Club) whose fusion of gestural abstraction with portraiture broadened the definition of Abstract Expressionism. Landau's curatorial framing for the AFA tour and Curtis's biography treat her as essential rather than peripheral. The 2015 NPG catalogue (Fortune, Gibson, Čupić) is the other substantial scholarly anchor, and an archival base exists at the Archives of American Art (papers c.1959-2013). She is not yet a fixture of the standard survey accounts at the level of Krasner, Mitchell or Frankenthaler. Her literature remains thinner than theirs: no catalogue raisonné and a single full-scale biography.

Gallery & Representation

Research updated 2026-09-25

Fair presence

Berry Campbell shows her regularly at major fairs: Art Basel Miami Beach 2025 (women of Abstract Expressionism booth with Baber, Bing, Drexler, Frankenthaler, Godwin, Schwabacher; reported sale of two Elaine de Kooning paintings at $75,000 each); a March 2026 fair booth (3E06); and Independent 20th Century, Sept 24-27, 2026 ('The Women of Stable Gallery', with Schwabacher, Baber, Biala, Dehner, Fine, Mitchell, Matter, Park, Thomas). Olney Gleason included her in its ABMB 2025 group presentation and is giving her a SOLO presentation at Independent 20th Century (Sept 24-27, 2026), where ARTnews reports paintings priced into the low seven figures. The fair's 'Market Insight: The Women of Abstract Expressionism' talk features Nick Olney and Martha Campbell. Fair presentations do not by themselves establish representation.

Representation

Primary

Role

Represents the artist's estate; stocks paintings, works on paper and prints; mounting the survey at its Chelsea space, October 29 - December 19, 2026, including the JFK series

Tier: Tier 2 - a leading specialist in postwar American abstraction and in women artists' estates

Gallery: Berry Campbell Gallery, New York

Stablemates

Alice Baber, Bernice Bing, Perle Fine, Lynne Drexler, Judith Godwin, Dorothy Dehner, Ida Kohlmeyer, Charlotte Park, Yvonne Thomas, Ethel Schwabacher, Mary Ann Unger (estate, debuted ABMB 2025), Louisa Chase (estate, debuted ABMB 2025), Beverly McIver, Nanette Carter, Walter Darby Bannard, Dan Christensen, Stephen Pace, Larry Zox

Galleries

Berry Campbell Gallery
Role
Estate gallery. Stocks paintings, works on paper and prints. Solo survey Oct 29 - Dec 19, 2026 (1948-1988, including the JFK series). Reported primary sales at ABMB 2025: two paintings at $75,000 each. Group presentation at Independent 20th Century, Sept 2026
Tier
1
Since
c. 2010s
Status
estate
Location
New York, NY (Chelsea)
Stablemates
Alice Baber, Bernice Bing, Perle Fine, Lynne Drexler, Judith Godwin, Dorothy Dehner, Ida Kohlmeyer, Charlotte Park, Yvonne Thomas, Ethel Schwabacher, Beverly McIver, Nanette Carter, Walter Darby Bannard, Dan Christensen, Stephen Pace, Larry Zox
Institution tier
2
Eric Firestone Gallery
Role
Shows her work in historical group contexts (Women Across America: 1945-1979, May 12 - July 31, 2026). A group exhibition does not by itself establish representation.
Tier
1
Since
date unknown
Status
secondary
Location
New York and East Hampton, NY
Institution tier
3
Kasmin Gallery
Role
Has offered individual works shown in its 2018 South Fork group exhibition. Secondary dealing only.
Tier
2
Since
2018
Status
secondary
Location
New York, NY
Institution tier
2
Mark Borghi
Role
Associated with the Levett Collection's Elaine de Kooning material
Tier
0
Since
date unknown
Status
secondary
Location
New York / Bridgehampton, NY
Institution tier
3
Heather James Fine Art
Role
Active secondary-market dealer in women Abstract Expressionists; public commentary on her market
Tier
1
Since
date unknown
Status
secondary
Location
Palm Desert CA, Jackson WY, New York
Institution tier
3

View 7 more records

Joan T. Washburn Gallery
Role
Historical dealer — Elaine de Kooning Paintings 1955-1965 and other shows
Tier
1
Since
date unknown
Status
former
Location
New York, NY
Institution tier
3
James Graham & Sons
Role
Historical dealer; gallery records now at the Archives of American Art
Tier
0
Since
date unknown
Status
former
Location
New York, NY
Institution tier
3
Stable Gallery
Role
Eleanor Ward's gallery (opened 1953, West 58th Street); 1950s solo exhibitions
Tier
1
Since
1950s
Status
former
Location
New York, NY
Institution tier
3
Gruenebaum Gallery
Role
Solo 'The Time of the Bison', May 3-31, 1986
Tier
0
Since
1986
Status
former
Location
New York, NY
Institution tier
3
Salander-O'Reilly Galleries
Role
Named as estate representative on Crown Point Press's stale artist page; gallery ceased operating in 2007
Tier
0
Since
date unknown
Status
former
Location
New York, NY
Institution tier
3
Olney Gleason
Role
NEW THIS PASS. Solo presentation of Elaine de Kooning at Independent 20th Century, Sept 24-27, 2026, with paintings reported priced into the low seven figures (ARTnews); included her in its ABMB 2025 group presentation. Founded 2025 by Nicholas Olney and Eric Gleason; two Chelsea locations. No evidence of estate representation; the source of its inventory was not established.
Tier
1
Since
2025
Status
secondary
Location
509 West 27th Street and 297 Tenth Avenue, New York, NY
Washburn Gallery (Joan T. Washburn Gallery)
Role
Historical dealer and posthumous estate outlet: Elaine de Kooning Paintings 1955-1965 and other shows. Sotheby's May 2026 provenance runs 'Estate of the artist; Washburn Gallery, New York; acquired 1998'
Tier
1
Since
date unknown (active by 1998 per Sotheby's provenance)
Status
former
Location
New York, NY
Institution tier
3

No mega gallery note

No Tier 1 mega-gallery (Gagosian, Zwirner, Hauser & Wirth, Pace) representation. This remains a real constraint on the price ceiling: comparable women-AbEx estates that moved to larger programmes re-rated further, and a move would be the clearest identifiable upside catalyst. Olney Gleason's low-seven-figure fair asks are a second dealer testing the top of the market, not a representation change. Gallery tier is a market fact and does not affect the institutional score.

Estate authority note

Estate authority rests with the Elaine de Kooning Trust, which holds copyright (© Elaine de Kooning Trust on Denver Art Museum and Berry Campbell images) and a large body of never-publicly-exhibited work. Berry Campbell is the current estate gallery; its estate status is carried from prior research and was not re-verified on a Trust-published page this pass. Every other entry is secondary dealing or historical.

Secondary and historical

Eric Firestone Gallery, New York / East Hampton — regularly exhibits her work in historical group contexts (Women Across America: 1945-1979, 2026)
Mark Borghi — associated with the Levett Collection's Elaine de Kooning material
Joan T. Washburn Gallery, New York — historical dealer
James Graham & Sons — historical dealer; gallery records now at the Archives of American Art
Stable Gallery, New York — 1950s solo exhibitions
Heather James Fine Art — active secondary-market dealer in women Abstract Expressionists
Estate authority: the Elaine de Kooning Trust (EdeK Trust), which holds copyright and a large body of never-publicly-exhibited work
Olney Gleason, New York - solo fair presentation at Independent 20th Century (Sept 2026); ABMB 2025 group presentation
Eric Firestone Gallery, New York / East Hampton - shows her work in historical group contexts (Women Across America: 1945-1979, 2026)
Mark Borghi - associated with the Levett Collection's Elaine de Kooning material
Joan T. Washburn Gallery, New York - historical dealer; posthumous estate outlet (provenance of the May 2026 Sotheby's Untitled, 1949)
James Graham & Sons - historical dealer; gallery records now at the Archives of American Art
Stable Gallery, New York - 1950s solo exhibitions
Heather James Fine Art - active secondary-market dealer in women Abstract Expressionists
Estate authority: the Elaine de Kooning Trust, which holds copyright and a large body of never-publicly-exhibited work

Geographic reach

Overwhelmingly US and New York-centred, with East Hampton, Denver, southeastern and Midwest museum presence. The AFA tour extends her US regional exposure through March 2028 (currently Iowa; then Alabama, Pittsburgh, Tampa). International reach is limited but real: the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts holding (by purchase) and the FAMM/Levett Collection in Mougins, France. Fair presence is US-only in the sources checked (ABMB, Independent 20th Century, New York). No foreign museum solo exhibition identified.

Representation history

Stable Gallery (1950s) -> James Graham & Sons -> Joan T. Washburn Gallery (including posthumous estate sales, e.g. the Untitled (1949) sold to the MacDonnells in 1998) -> Gruenebaum Gallery (1986 show) -> (Salander-O'Reilly, per a stale Crown Point Press page; gallery defunct 2007) -> estate representation consolidated at Berry Campbell, with parallel secondary activity by Eric Firestone, Kasmin, Mark Borghi, Heather James and, from 2025, Olney Gleason.

Sources & research notes

Egon’s artist research combines historical auction records, recent sales, institutional history, critical reception and gallery information. Researched auction records and auction highlights are identified separately.

Read prices with their work, sale date, currency and stated basis. Egon’s market assessments are distinct from reported auction results.

Reference: Egon, “Elaine de Kooning: Market Intelligence & Investment Profile.”

Evidence & qualifications

These notes preserve the sources, status and qualifications recorded in the research.

Sotheby's Contemporary Day Auction, New York, 15 May 2026, lot 359: Elaine de Kooning, Untitled, from Works from the Collection of Jannine and Robert MacDonnell, estimate $200,000-$300,000; auction closed and the result is login-gated on the lot page. Our internal auction database separately records $537,600 premium-inclusive for an Untitled at Sotheby's, May 2026.

Market · Documented · Event: 2026-05-15 · Source retrieved: 2026-09-21

The Sotheby's page documents the lot, estimate and closure, NOT the realized price. The $537,600 figure is ours, not Sotheby's; the two are reported with separate provenance rather than merged.
https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2026/contemporary-day-auction-2/untitled-17
MutualArt lists ~430 works at auction and records $1,071,000 for Charge, Sotheby's New York 2022, as the artist's record price since 2001.

Market · Documented · Event: 2022-11 · Source retrieved: 2026-09-21

Aggregator data; 'since 2001' scopes the database coverage. Record still standing as of retrieval; a record is not a price floor.
https://www.mutualart.com/Artist/Elaine-de-Kooning/D3ED075C8D3171C0
ARTnews's New York fall 2026 market-season preview reports a dealer will show Elaine de Kooning paintings at Independent 20th Century priced into the low seven figures.

Market · Reported · Event: September 2026 · Source retrieved: 2026-09-21

The gallery is not identified in the passage retrieved; this is an asking price, not a transaction, and no public auction result above $1.071M corroborates the level.
https://www.artnews.com/art-news/market/new-york-fall-2026-market-season-preview-1234798210/
Sotheby's Contemporary Curated, 26 February 2026, lot 61: Untitled (Charging Bull), oil and ink on paper, c.1958, est. $20,000-$30,000, auction closed, result login-gated.

Market · Unresolved · Event: 2026-02-26 · Source retrieved: 2026-09-21

Closure is not proof of sale. Distinct from the Christie's July 2026 'Untitled (Charging Bull Series)' in our database ($27,940); the two must not be merged.
https://www.sothebys.com/buy/ecec2886-9bcc-4f50-b0ef-4285ce8fa4dc/lots/6cbdaec7-d6d1-43b7-84d8-def9f58afacb
Untitled (Black Mountain #13), 1948, enamel and paper collage mounted on canvas, sold for $207,900 at Christie's New York, more than eight times the low estimate.

Market · Reported · Source retrieved: 2026-09-21

Trade-press aggregation; the sale date was not stated in the passage retrieved.
https://heni.com/news/view/9a2bca3d-6cab-5be6-b346-5299333c1dc5
Heather James Fine Art's New York partner reports appetite for women Abstract Expressionists grew dramatically over roughly five years, and describes 'a huge expanse of zeros' between Elaine de Kooning's results and Willem de Kooning's.

Market · Reported · Source retrieved: 2026-09-21

Dealer commentary with a commercial interest in the category; the article predates 2026 and describes a trend, not current pricing.
https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-rising-market-women-abstract-expressionists
Christian Levett frames his collecting as building a museum-level collection of Mitchell, Krasner, Frankenthaler and Elaine de Kooning at prices far below male peers.

Market · Reported · Source retrieved: 2026-09-21

Collector self-description; Levett is the lender behind the touring exhibition and therefore an interested party in the category's re-rating.
https://www.artbasel.com/stories/women-artists-female-art-market-collectors
Sotheby's Contemporary Day Auction, New York, 15 May 2026, lot 359: Elaine de Kooning, Untitled, executed 1949, oil and enamel on Masonite, 35 3/4 x 23 3/4 in., from Works from the Collection of Jannine and Robert MacDonnell, est. $200,000-$300,000; provenance: Estate of the artist; Washburn Gallery, New York; acquired from the above in 1998 by the present owner. Result is login-gated on the lot page.

Market · Documented · Event: 2026-05-15 · Source retrieved: 2026-09-25

The Sotheby's page documents the lot, medium, size, estimate and provenance, NOT the price.
https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2026/contemporary-day-auction-2/untitled-17
Artsy's recent-results feed lists Untitled, 1949, 15 May 2026, US$537,600 (+115% vs estimate). This matches our own database figure of $537,600 premium-inclusive for an Untitled at Sotheby's, May 2026.

Market · Reported · Event: 2026-05-15 · Source retrieved: 2026-09-25

Aggregator feed, not the Sotheby's results page. The two provenances agree but are reported separately. A premium-inclusive price against a hammer-basis estimate overstates the 'over estimate' margin.
https://www.artsy.net/artist/elaine-de-kooning
ARTnews's fall 2026 preview, in a passage quoting Nick Olney of Olney Gleason, reports that at Independent 20th Century 'the dealers will show paintings by Elaine de Kooning, priced into the low seven figures.'

Market · Reported · Event: 2026-09-24/27 · Source retrieved: 2026-09-25

Asking price, not a transaction. Independent's gallery page separately confirms Olney Gleason's solo presentation. This corrects the prior note that the gallery was unidentified. The fair is running at the time of retrieval; no sales reports have been retrieved.
https://www.artnews.com/art-news/market/new-york-fall-2026-market-season-preview-1234798210/
Olney Gleason will present work by Elaine de Kooning in a solo presentation at Independent 20th Century (Sept 24-27, 2026, The Breuer, 945 Madison Ave). The gallery was founded in 2025 by Nicholas Olney and Eric Gleason and has two Chelsea locations.

Market · Documented · Event: 2026-09-24 · Source retrieved: 2026-09-25

Fair presentation; it does not establish estate representation.
https://www.independenthq.com/galleries/olney-gleason
At Art Basel Miami Beach 2025, Berry Campbell sold two paintings by Elaine de Kooning for $75,000 each.

Market · Reported · Event: 2025-12 · Source retrieved: 2026-09-25

Dealer-reported primary sale. The Art Newspaper names Catskill Series (1965) and a Cave work among Berry Campbell's Elaine de Kooning sales, but its passage was truncated, so matching the $75k prices to those titles is not verified.
https://news.artnet.com/market/at-miami-basel-dealers-notch-seven-figure-sales-digital-art-draws-crowds-2723568
Christie's offered two Elaine de Kooning oils on Masonite on 20 Nov 2025: Standing Bull (15 1/8 x 19 3/8 in.) and Self-Portrait #1 (23 1/2 x 17 7/8 in.).

Market · Unresolved · Event: 2025-11-20 · Source retrieved: 2026-09-25

Lot existence is corroborated by Invaluable and Artsy (Artsy dates both 1958 and 1942 respectively). Prices were gated and not retrieved; sale outcome unknown. These lots are absent from our database, so its coverage is incomplete.
https://www.invaluable.com/artist/dekooning-elaine-q0nlhhypex/sold-at-auction-prices/
MutualArt lists about 430 works at auction and gives $1,071,000 for Charge, Sotheby's New York 2022, as the artist's record since 2001.

Market · Documented · Event: 2022-11 · Source retrieved: 2026-09-25

Aggregator data; 'since 2001' limits the database coverage. The record still stands; a record is not a price floor.
https://www.mutualart.com/Artist/Elaine-de-Kooning/D3ED075C8D3171C0
Cave #179 (1986): Artsy dates the sale 27 Feb 2026; the previous research pass recorded 25 Feb 2026 (Christie's).

Market · Contradicted · Event: 2026-02 (25 or 27) · Source retrieved: 2026-09-25

Possibly the opening versus closing date of an online sale; the exact date is unresolved. The price ($22,860, our database) is unaffected.
https://www.artsy.net/artist/elaine-de-kooning
Sotheby's Contemporary Curated, 26 February 2026, lot 61: Untitled (Charging Bull), oil and ink on paper, c.1958, est. $20,000-$30,000, auction closed, result login-gated.

Market · Unresolved · Event: 2026-02-26 · Source retrieved: 2026-09-21

Closure is not proof of sale. Distinct from the Christie's 17 Jul 2026 'Untitled (Charging Bull Series), 1959' ($27,940); the two must not be merged.
https://www.sothebys.com/buy/ecec2886-9bcc-4f50-b0ef-4285ce8fa4dc/lots/6cbdaec7-d6d1-43b7-84d8-def9f58afacb
The AFA itinerary for 'Abstract Expressionists: The Women' lists Grinnell College Museum of Art (Sept 17, 2026 – Jan 3, 2027), Mobile Museum of Art (Jan 30 – Apr 25, 2027), The Frick Pittsburgh (June 12 – Sept 26, 2027) and Tampa Museum of Art (Oct 14, 2027 – Mar 5, 2028).

Institutional · Documented · Event: 2026-09-17 through 2028-03-05 · Source retrieved: 2026-09-21

Read from AFA page text returned in search results; a direct page fetch did not complete before the server tool budget was exhausted. Earlier venues corroborated by the Nancy Graves Foundation exhibition list and Antiques and The Arts Weekly.
https://www.amfedarts.org/abstract-expressionists-the-women/
The previously recorded itinerary — five venues Aug 2025 – Apr 2027 including Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, National Museum of Women in the Arts and ASU Art Museum — is contradicted. The verified first venue was the Wichita Art Museum (Aug 8 – Nov 15, 2025), and the tour extends to seven venues and to March 2028.

Institutional · Contradicted · Event: 2025-08-08 · Source retrieved: 2026-09-21

Kemper, NMWA and ASU appear in no itinerary retrieved this pass; the tour may also have been re-scheduled since the earlier research. This is a correction to a previously logged fact, not a newly discovered catalyst.
https://www.nancygravesfoundation.org/group-exhibitions
Speed Art Museum, Louisville, is a confirmed 2026 venue, but published dates conflict: Artnet News gives May 23 – August 30, 2026; the Nancy Graves Foundation gives May 22 – August 29, 2026; Antiques and The Arts Weekly gives May 16 – August 30.

Institutional · Contradicted · Event: 2026-05 to 2026-08 · Source retrieved: 2026-09-21

The venue is not in doubt, only the exact dates; recorded as unresolved rather than selecting one source.
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/abstract-expressionists-women-christian-levett-2737104
Smithsonian name-matched records for this artist include Smithsonian Libraries books, exhibition catalogues and an artist file — bibliographic material about or by the artist, not artwork holdings.

Institutional · Documented · Source retrieved: 2026-09-21

From the supplied Smithsonian API sample, not a web source. These must not be converted into holdings at SAAM, the Hirshhorn or any other Smithsonian museum; the NPG holdings are established separately.
Memorial Art Gallery, University of Rochester holds John Ashbery (1975), oil on canvas, accession 1999.3.

Institutional · Reported · Event: 1999 (accession year implied by the accession number) · Source retrieved: 2026-09-21

Wikipedia article on the painting; the accession number cited there was not confirmed against the museum's own record. Credit line unknown.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ashbery_(Elaine_de_Kooning)
Crown Point Press's artist page states that the estate of Elaine de Kooning is represented by Salander O'Reilly Gallery, New York.

Institutional · Contradicted · Source retrieved: 2026-09-21

Stale page: Salander-O'Reilly ceased operating in 2007 and estate activity is now consolidated at Berry Campbell. The same page's collection list (Guggenheim, MoMA, Corcoran, Albright-Knox) is an attributed claim of comparable vintage and is treated as unverified where not independently confirmed.
https://crownpoint.com/artist/elaine-de-kooning/
Existing museum_collections entry 'Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum' is UPGRADED from attributed to documented: the Guggenheim's Collection Online artist page presents Elaine de Kooning, Juarez, 1958, oil on Masonite, 35 3/4 x 47 7/8 in. (90.8 x 121.6 cm), image file 83.3133.

Institutional · Documented · Event: 1983 (accession year implied by the number 83.3133; not stated on the page) · Source retrieved: 2026-09-25

No credit line appears on the artist page checked; the object's own record was not fetched. Credit line unknown.
https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/artist/elaine-de-kooning
NEW holding: the Whitney Museum of American Art records '1 work in the Whitney's collection': Elaine de Kooning, Untitled, c.1947, pencil drawing (collection/works/7894). The same page lists her in the Whitney's Annual Exhibition 1961 and in Labyrinth of Forms: Women and Abstraction, 1930-1950 (2021-22).

Institutional · Documented · Source retrieved: 2026-09-25

No credit line or accession date on the artist page checked. The image file '92_7' suggests accession 92.7 (1992), but that is an inference, not stated.
https://whitney.org/artists/3524
Existing entry 'Denver Art Museum' is UPGRADED from a gallery-sourced claim to documented: Bullfight, 1959, oil on canvas, 77-5/8 x 131-1/4 in., credit 'Denver Art Museum: Vance H. Kirkland Acquisition Fund.'

Institutional · Documented · Source retrieved: 2026-09-25

Credit line from the museum's own blog image caption (Sept 15, 2016). A named acquisition fund indicates a museum purchase (curatorial initiation). Acquisition date not stated.
https://www.denverartmuseum.org/en/blog/women-abstract-expressionism-artist-elaine-de-kooning
National Portrait Gallery holds a Self-portrait, oil on Masonite, 1946, NPG.94.81.

Institutional · Documented · Event: 1994 (implied by accession prefix NPG.94) · Source retrieved: 2026-09-25

Legacy NPG exhibition page (c. 2002); credit line not shown on that page. One of the NPG's portrait holdings; does not change the 13-work figure the Smithsonian gives elsewhere.
https://npg.si.edu/exh/brush/elaine.htm
Sotheby's artist page states that her work is in the public collections of MoMA, the Guggenheim, the Met, the Denver Art Museum and the National Portrait Gallery, among others.

Institutional · Reported · Source retrieved: 2026-09-25

Auction-house summary; each holding is weighed on its own primary evidence.
https://www.sothebys.com/en/artists/elaine-de-kooning
AFA organizer itinerary (retrieved Sept 25, 2026): Wichita Art Museum, Aug 23 - Nov 30, 2025; Muscarelle Museum of Art, Jan 23 - Apr 26, 2026; Speed Art Museum, May 16 - Aug 30, 2026; then Grinnell, Mobile, The Frick Pittsburgh, Tampa through March 5, 2028.

Institutional · Documented · Event: 2025-08-23 through 2028-03-05 · Source retrieved: 2026-09-25

Organizer's page text as returned in search results.
https://www.amfedarts.org/abstract-expressionists-the-women/
Wichita dates conflict: the previously recorded 'Aug 8 - Nov 15, 2025' (Nancy Graves Foundation list) versus the AFA's Aug 23 - Nov 30, 2025.

Institutional · Contradicted · Event: 2025-08 · Source retrieved: 2026-09-25

Organizer dates preferred for the active record; the venue itself is not in doubt.
https://www.amfedarts.org/abstract-expressionists-the-women/
Grinnell dates conflict: Grinnell College's own exhibitions page gives Sept 17, 2026 - Jan 2, 2027; Artnet News and FAMM's collection record give Sept 19, 2026 - Jan 3, 2027; the prior research recorded Sept 17 - Jan 3.

Institutional · Contradicted · Event: 2026-09-17 or 2026-09-19 · Source retrieved: 2026-09-25

The host venue's own page is preferred, but exact dates are unresolved. The show is on view as of retrieval. Other conflicting dates: Muscarelle (AFA Jan 23 - Apr 26; Berry Campbell 30 Jan - 26 Apr) and Speed (AFA May 16; FAMM/Artnet May 23).
https://www.grinnell.edu/campus-life/arts-culture/museum/exhibitions
Legacy upcoming string 'Abstract Expressionists: The Women continues to Arizona State University Art Museum, Tempe, and additional venues to be announced, through April 2027' and the significant_group string describing a 'two-year, five-museum US tour, August 2025 - April 2027' with Mildred Lane Kemper, NMWA and ASU venues are CONTRADICTED.

Institutional · Contradicted · Source retrieved: 2026-09-25

Kemper, NMWA and ASU appear in none of the itineraries retrieved (AFA, Berry Campbell, Grinnell, FAMM, Artnet). The tour is seven venues to March 2028.
https://www.amfedarts.org/abstract-expressionists-the-women/
Legacy upcoming string 'Two lots listed as upcoming in the Egon auction database' is stale.

Institutional · Unresolved · Source retrieved: 2026-09-25

No upcoming lots were identified in the sources checked; the claim is retained only as unverified internal data.
Smithsonian name-matched records for this artist include Smithsonian Libraries books, exhibition catalogues and an artist file: bibliographic material about or by the artist, not artwork holdings.

Institutional · Documented · Source retrieved: 2026-09-21

From the supplied Smithsonian API sample, not a web source. Must not be turned into holdings at SAAM, the Hirshhorn or any other Smithsonian museum.
Memorial Art Gallery, University of Rochester holds John Ashbery (1975), oil on canvas, accession 1999.3.

Institutional · Reported · Event: 1999 (implied by accession number) · Source retrieved: 2026-09-21

Wikipedia; not confirmed against the museum's own record. Credit line unknown.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ashbery_(Elaine_de_Kooning)
Crown Point Press's artist page states the estate is represented by Salander O'Reilly Gallery, New York.

Institutional · Contradicted · Source retrieved: 2026-09-21

Stale page: Salander-O'Reilly ceased operating in 2007. Its collection list (Guggenheim, MoMA, Corcoran, Albright-Knox) is partly confirmed now (Guggenheim documented this pass).
https://crownpoint.com/artist/elaine-de-kooning/
Artsy reports a major Elaine de Kooning exhibition opening at Berry Campbell Gallery, New York on October 29, spanning four decades from 1948 to 1988, and describes it as the first major solo presentation since the NPG's 2015-16 show.

Critical · Documented · Event: 2026-10-29 (opening); article published 2026-07-29 · Source retrieved: 2026-09-21

Our internal news label called this a 'Retrospective'. The quote wins: it is a commercial gallery exhibition — exhibition and market evidence, not a museum acquisition or a museum retrospective.
https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-laine-de-koonings-jfk-portrait-series-view-new-york-fall
Artnet News's feature on the touring exhibition quotes curator Ellen G. Landau on Abstract Expressionism being larger than its male canon and reports strong visitor response at the Wichita Art Museum venue.

Critical · Reported · Event: 2026 · Source retrieved: 2026-09-21

Anecdotal visitor response relayed by the curator; independent outlet but promotional in framing.
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/abstract-expressionists-women-christian-levett-2737104
Artsy reports a major Elaine de Kooning exhibition opening at Berry Campbell Gallery, New York on October 29, spanning 1948 to 1988, and calls it her first major solo presentation since the NPG's 2015-16 show.

Critical · Documented · Event: 2026-10-29 (opening); article published 2026-07-29 · Source retrieved: 2026-09-25

Our internal news label called this a 'Retrospective'. The quote wins: it is a COMMERCIAL GALLERY EXHIBITION (GalleriesNow gives Oct 29 - Dec 19, 2026), which is market and exhibition evidence, not a museum retrospective or acquisition.
https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-laine-de-koonings-jfk-portrait-series-view-new-york-fall
Artnet News's feature on the touring exhibition quotes curator Ellen G. Landau on Abstract Expressionism being larger than its male canon and gives the Grinnell leg as Sept 19, 2026 - Jan 3, 2027.

Critical · Reported · Event: 2026-02-21 · Source retrieved: 2026-09-25

Independent outlet but promotional framing; its Grinnell dates conflict with Grinnell's own page (Sept 17, 2026 - Jan 2, 2027).
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/abstract-expressionists-women-christian-levett-2737104
Artforum (June 12, 2026) reports Independent 20th Century's 2026 edition at the Breuer building, naming Berry Campbell's 'The Women of Stable Gallery' presentation including Elaine de Kooning.

Critical · Documented · Event: 2026-06-12 · Source retrieved: 2026-09-25

News coverage of a commercial fair, not a critical review of her work.
https://www.artforum.com/news/independent-20th-century-2026-fair-at-the-breuer-building-1234752187/

Research bibliography · 78 sources

Sources recorded for this artist’s research. This bibliography does not assign every source to an individual claim.

Research updates by section

These dates show when Egon’s research sections were updated. Source retrieval dates, where supplied above, refer to individual evidence notes.

Market position · 2026-09-25
Institutional presence · 2026-09-25
Career & biography · 2026-09-25
Artistic profile · 2026-09-25
Critical reception · 2026-09-25
Gallery & representation · 2026-09-25

Ranking updated 2026-10-01. Research sections follow their own update dates.

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retrospective

Latest: Elaine de Kooning receives first major solo gallery exhibition since her 2015–2016 National Portrait

Most recent signal: Jul 30, 2026

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Elaine de Kooning

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