Willem de Kooning was arguably the most important first-generation Abstract Expressionist of the 20th century. In 1950s New York when famous painters Jackson Pollock and Franz Kline began to move away from the figurative tradition, de Kooning maintained his commitment to the figure, painting the female form which dominated his subject matter and his "Women" series. Toward the end of his career, however, his figures became ever more deconstructed and his palette reduced to primary colors. His handling of line and form became more lyrical and less aggressive, which many believe to be a result of dementia which begun to affect him in the mid-1980s.
The present work comes from the larger series "Quatre Lithographies", which was created after his series of primary and secondary color canvases; in the 1980s de Kooning was quite prolific producing over 300 paintings in this vein. According to the present owner this print, one of 15 hors-commerce impressions, was gifted by the artist to the medical humanitarian organization Doctors without Borders. The present owner received the print as a gift from photographer and art collector Luc Fournol, who was a dear friend to artist Bernard Buffet.