The Music Party

In The Music Party, Elaine de Kooning deftly marries the gestural brushstrokes of Abstract Expressionism with the representational nature of portraiture. In 1948—the year this work was executed—Josef Albers invited the de Koonings to spend the summer at Black Mountain College. While Willem taught painting, Elaine took courses in dance, color theory, and physics from the college’s renowned faculty. Talented and independent, yet often relegated to the shadow of her more famous husband, Elaine de Kooning protested gender discrimination in the art world by signing her paintings with the androgynous monogram, E de K, visible in the lower right-hand corner of the canvas.