November’s edition of Focus on the Work encourages Friends to learn more about the painting Abstraction (1949-1950) by Willem de Kooning, one of the leading figures of American Abstract Expressionism.

In a live, participative session Paloma Alarcó, Chief Curator of Modern Painting at the museum, will be explaining the painting, a work based on gesture and colour, in which De Kooning reveals a fully defined and personal style unconnected with any earlier artistic language. Despite its title the composition is based on traditional pictorial motifs and is filled with figurative references which participants will discover during the course of this activity.