“THE TEN-YEAR PARTY” | NEW YORK, 1949-1959

“The Ten-Year Party” – that’s what Elaine de Kooning called the decade-long, post-war development and breakthrough of Abstract Expressionism.

Brilliant, stunning and married to Bill (Willem), Elaine was at the center of the close-knit group of driven, imaginative, under-the-radar downtown artists whose names now reverberate: Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, Mark Rothko, Grace Hartigan, Robert Motherwell, Helen Frankenthaler and many more. An article in Life magazine in August 1949 rocketed Pollock to celebrity status and got the party started. The movement relocated the art world center from Paris to New York, finally gave women a chance to shine, attracted attention from the CIA and redefined modern art.

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• Lectures