  About the Artwork
  
  
  Unlike his contemporaries Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko, de Kooning’s paintings refer to natural forms and specific places or events, pushed into pure abstraction by his reliance on color and the deep build-up of paint to create form. Depth and perspective are subordinated to the flattening effects of his slashing, violent brushwork. Some of the "abstract landscapes" from 1957 to 1963 are based on the landscape around Long Island Sound, including Merritt Parkway, a local highway. Speed is suggested by the controlled thrusts of the brush while the naturalistic palette conveys the crisscross of the road through the landscape.
  
  
  Title
  Merritt Parkway
  
  
  Artwork Date
  1959
  
  Artist
  Willem de Kooning
  
  
  
  Life Dates
  1904-1997
  
  
  
  
  Nationality
  
  
  
  Please note:
  Definitions for nationality may vary significantly, depending on chronology and world events.
  Some definitions include:
  Belonging to a people having a common origin based on a geography and/or descent and/or tradition and/or culture and/or religion and/or language, or sharing membership in a legally defined nation.
  
  
  
  American
  
  
  
  Culture
  
  
  
  Please note:
  Cultures may be defined by the language, customs, religious beliefs, social norms, and material traits of a group.
  
  
  
  
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  Medium
  Oil on canvas
  
  
  Dimensions
  Unframed: 80 × 70 1/2 inches (203.2 × 179.1 cm)
  Framed: 81 × 70 7/8 × 2 inches (205.7 × 180 × 5.1 cm)
  
  
  Classification
  Paintings
  
  
  Department
  Contemporary Art after 1950
  
  
  Credit
  Bequest of W. Hawkins Ferry
  
  
  
  Accession Number
  
  
  
  This unique number is assigned to an individual artwork as part of the cataloguing process at the time of entry into the permanent collection.
  Most frequently, accession numbers begin with the year in which the artwork entered the museum’s holdings.
  For example, 2008.3 refers to the year of acquisition and notes that it was the 3rd of that year. The DIA has a few additional systems—no longer assigned—that identify specific donors or museum patronage groups.
  
  
  
  1988.177
  
  
  Copyright
  © The Willem de Kooning Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris
