Portrait of Merce Cunningham by Elaine de Kooning

                        © Elaine de Kooning Trust

Some found him bewilderingly outrageous. Many others proclaimed him a genius of the first rank. But on one point there is little room for dispute: Merce Cunningham was one of the great influences in the evolution of twentieth-century western dance. He died Sunday July, 26, at age ninety. This 1962 portrait of Cunningham by Elaine de Kooning is part of the National Portrait Gallery’s collection.

Joining Martha Graham’s dance company in 1939, Cunningham won his earliest distinction as the originator of major dance roles for a number of Graham’s productions, including Appalachian Spring. In the mid-1940s, he struck out on his own and, in tandem with avant-garde composer John Cage, began developing a dance form—termed aleatoric—that was characterized by an unstructured randomness. After founding his own company in 1953, Cunningham continued to innovate, raising dance to ever more abstract levels.

Today there are few areas of dance—both traditional and avant-garde—that have not been affected by Cunningham’s experimentation. His portraitist, Elaine de Kooning, was most often identified with the abstract expressionist school. But much of her work contained strong figurative elements, endowing her portraits with both the representational vision and the gestural brushwork of abstract expressionism.

Merce Cunningham / Elaine de Kooning / Oil on canvas, 1962 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of the Foundation for Contemporary Performing Arts, Inc. / © Elaine de Kooning Trust

Comments

[Emily]

I like the way you're using your collection to cover current events. Makes me realize just how extensive your collection is! Love the museum and just subscribed to your blog's RSS. Keep up the good work-- a good example for other museums.

[Lynn]

I was very interested in De Koonings Kennedy portrait and was wondering how the Truman Library's process to choose her worked? It was such a radical choice for that time.

Did Kennedy have any remarks about her or her work?

And how many "official" portraits of Kennedy are there? (how many is usual in the decades since Kennedy? Thank you so much, my students are curious and I have found answers to some questions but not these....

[kaizen4]

It most knowledgeable new to know about him

[jamesjon83]

Cunningham won his earliest distinction as the originator of major dance roles for a number of Graham’s productions, including Appalachian Spring. In the mid-1940s, he struck out on his own and, in tandem with avant-garde composer John Cage, began developing a dance form—termed aleatoric—that was characterized by an unstructured randomness. After founding his own company in 1953, Cunningham continued to innovate

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jamesjon83

fsbo