Garden in Delft

This carefully culled portfolio of 14 paintings, meticulously reproduced and documented, spans 60 years--from the time of the master's arrival in America to the late 80s. Readers will find rare examples of de Kooning's earliest works juxtaposed with a cityscape from the 1950s, canvases from the important period of his arrival in Easthampton, and abstract landscapes of the 70s and 80s. David Anfam's essay traces de Kooning's intriguing relationship to water, invoking the work of Heraclitus, Yeats, Melville and Frost in conjuring the sense of fluidity that characterized both his urban and rural work. Anfam also puzzles over the enigma of a man who lived perpetually beside the ocean--the book opens with a photograph of him striding across the beach in Easthampton in 1968--but never learned to swim.