Willem de Kooning: Disegni [Signed & Inscribed]

Spoleto: Panetto & Petrelli, 1969. First edition. Covers edgeworn; sparse foxing to front panel with heavier to rear panel and top page edges. Binding is sound and pages unmarked.. 8vo (23.3cm). Unpaginated, [16] pages, black and white illustrations. Photo-illustrated wrappers. Bilingual text in English and Italian. Signed by de Kooning on the half-title and inscribed:" "To dear Fritz with love / de Kooning."

Catalogue for de Kooning's exhibit of thirty-seven drawings (16 reproduced here) shown for the first time in Europe at the 12th Festival dei Due Mondi, with a bilingual introduction as well as de Kooning's essay "What Abstract Art (truncated) Means to Me," reprinted from the Museum of Modern Art Bulletin (195, talk delivered at the "What is Abstract Art?" symposium, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, February 5, 1951). This Spoleto exhibition was organized in collaboration with the Knoedler Gallery, New York. All of the drawings were executed in 1968-69.

Similar inscriptions "to Fritz" found in auction records and the trade suggest these were all to Fritz Bultman, though an unpublished de Kooning proof [Untitled (Bather 2)] catalogued at Bonham's in May 2019 inscribed "to Fritz and Matilda..." may suggest otherwise (Bultman's wife was the stained-glass artist, model, and dancer Jeanne Lawson Bultman). An affectionate inscription nonetheless on a somewhat uncommon exhibition catalogue. (Inventory #: 410614)