The Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art announced on Mar. 10 that its ongoing Kemper x KU: Collection Spotlights series is featuring writings on Willem de Kooning’s Untitled and Philip Pearlstein’s Two Models on Kilim Rug with Mirror. The series, a collaboration with the University of Kansas, aims to provide deeper insight into key works from the museum’s collection.
This week’s spotlight includes essays by Cara Castaldi and Marty Arnold, both graduate students in Museum Studies at the University of Kansas. Their analyses explore the artistic techniques and historical context behind each painting, offering viewers a closer look at the artists’ intentions and methods.
Castaldi describes de Kooning’s Untitled as a dynamic composition where “pinks, yellows, whites, and blues lunge across the canvas,” emphasizing movement through varied paint application techniques. She notes that de Kooning’s approach records “a physical moment” in his process, generating “movement and restlessness in the composition.” Castaldi also discusses how de Kooning’s work reflects elements from his personal life and broader art movements such as Abstract Expressionism. She cites art critic Harold Rosenberg: “What was to go on the canvas was not a picture but an event.”
Arnold examines Pearlstein’s Two Models on Kilim Rug with Mirror as an example of “hard realism,” highlighting how Pearlstein rejected narrative sentimentality for clear observation. Arnold writes that Pearlstein rendered what he saw “with a disciplined precision,” focusing on color, mass, and form rather than individualized subjects. The essay details how Pearlstein’s cropping technique invites viewers to see nudes as formal components within a still-life arrangement. Quoting Ken Johnson from The New York Times: “it is what it is” approach established him as an artist who rejected narrative sentimentality in favor of clear, unsparing observation.
Both essays place these works within their respective historical contexts—de Kooning within Abstract Expressionism and Pearlstein within realist revival—while exploring how each artist approached representation in unique ways.
The Kemper x KU: Collection Spotlights series continues to offer new perspectives on contemporary art through academic collaboration.
