With a career spanning nearly seven decades, William de Kooning's oeuvre is marked by extensive exploration and experimentation. While his contemporaries focused on non-representational art, de Kooning's compositions were not exclusively abstract. 

The female figure was a frequent point of departure for de Kooning, who used frenetic brushstrokes and dense applications of paint to fragment and depict their form.

"The Man and the Big Blonde" displays key characteristics of his hybrid aesthetic. Thick brushstrokes of saffron fill the right side of the page, evoking the impression of cascading blonde hair. The voluminous shape seem to envelop the heavily distorted figure on the left, in what could be a romantic encounter or an expression of something more sinister or cynical. 

The mysterious figure is depicted with a large eye that peers back at the viewer amidst the interaction. Eyes are a recurring motif throughout de Kooning's oeuvre, heightening the emotional intensity of the work by hinting at the presence of a concealed figure. 

In 2018, de Kooning achieved an auction record of $68 million for his 1955 painting "Women as a Landscape." Today, his work can be found in every major public collection around the world including the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), the Museum of Contemporary Arts Tokyo, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Art Gallery of Ontario.

Courtesy of Caviar20