Art Dealer discovers six paintings by Willem de Kooning in the New Jersey Storage Locker | Smart news

The work of Willem de Kooning, who crosses the borders, challenges the rankings. Although the artist is often linked to abstract expressionists such as Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko, his figurative paintings move away from the abstract, reveling in the contours of the female body through an aggressive mix gestural movements. As Kooning once asserted: "The flesh is the reason why oil painting was invented."

About two decades after his death in 1997, the Dutch painter remains one of the giants of modern art. Now, his fans have a new reason to be excited: works so far unknown that would have been painted by Kooning in the '70s are expected to hit the market this fall.

According to the New York Post Chelsea gallerist Melissa Klein, David Killen discovered the paintings – as well as a canvas that he attributes to the Swiss-German modernist Paul Klee – in a storage unit that he bought last year for $ 15,000. The 200 canvases kept in the interior belonged to curator Orrin Riley, who ran a restoration business from his studio in Manhattan until his death in 1986. Following the death of Susanne Schnitzer, Riley's partner in 2009, the work lasts nine years. "If you look [the paintings] up close, you can see that there are slight tears and holes here and there," says Killen to Anthony G. Attrino of NJ.com "I believe that they were given to Orrin to be restored after the owners have collected insurance. "

At the end of their search, the executors were still holding hundreds of paintings and after receiving the Attorney General's Office of the State of New York. After being allowed to sell the property "abandoned", they decide to offer the works to the auction houses.

A high-ranking company refuses paintings, says Killen to Klein, and it's easy to see why: "I thought that heap of ju nk," says the art dealer at Attrino. "I saw well , bad and ugly … Overall, I thought it was a trash, but I'm still looking for filler. "

Killen offered executors $ 75 per painting, either $ 15,000, and resigned to selling the works. Bimonthly auctions from his gallery.Then, while he was beginning to load the contents of the storage bin on a truck, he saw several boxes "Kooning." Six canvases, previously identified by the executors as less valuable prints, seemed to carry the singular style of the artist.Killen knew that the discovery could be the key to recovering his investment (and then some).

To verify the authenticity of the works, Kil len turned to Kooning's former studio assistant, Lawrence Castagna, and Henri Neuendorf reports for Artnet News .

"In my opinion they are [de Koonings]", Castagna tells the Post Klein's. "There is no doubt about it."

Castagna believes that the works were painted by Kooning during the 1970s. At the time, the artist was pursuing a new interest in sculpture and was changing his painting style, opening up 'big' abstract works in light tones with simpler and more sober gestures' than earlier paintings, according to modern non-profit arts education. Story. The work failed to generate much interest when they started, says Castagna, and by the end of the decade, Kooning had begun to show signs of dementia. Despite the devastating effects of the disease, he continued to work throughout the 1980s, painting his last work in 1991.

After at AFP, the anonymous expert Killen also consulted his belief that the paintings were authentic "I see in his eyes, he trembles," says Killen . "He said," That 's exactly what Kooning was doing in the' 70s, one after the other. "19659017] The Willem de Kooning Foundation does not authenticate the works, so it will be difficult for Killen to obtain an official verification Although the merchant has informed the foundation of his discovery, Artnet News & # 39; Neuendorf writes that it

The reaction of the art world to discovery remains to be seen Marion Maneker of Art Market Monitor expressed his skepticism about history by writing, "If these works were to be accepted as of Koonings, they're not major works." But these little resumes of the 1970s are doing well on the market lately (this which just gives them a bit of luck, as they say). "Others, like Castagna, celebrate the possibility of reviving six forgotten Koonings.

Killen will unveil the paintings of his gallery tonight and will in the autumn of 2018.

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