Litho #2 (Waves #2)

"Litho #2 (Waves #2)" is a 1960 lithograph by Willem de Kooning that captures the Dutch-American Abstract Expressionist in his most gesturally fluid and coloristically vibrant printmaking mode, the image showing wave-like forms rendered with the same bold, sweeping brushwork and chromatic intensity that characterized his most powerful paintings. The composition is a large lithograph—116.8 × 81.3 centimeters—showing fluid, wave-like forms with the lithograph on cream wove paper creating a surface of extraordinary energy and optical movement. The lithograph technique allows for the same gestural freedom as painting while creating a reproducible image that suggests both the spontaneity of the drawing and the permanence of the print. The 1960 date places this work in the period of de Kooning's mature printmaking production, when he was producing the lithographs that captured the dynamic energy of his painting in the graphic medium. Art historians have connected this print to the broader tradition of the gestural print in modern art, from the lithographs of the German Expressionists to the prints of the Abstract Expressionists, noting that de Kooning's treatment is more focused on the gestural energy and the coloristic intensity, the transformation of brushstroke into graphic gesture, than the compositional control or the formal precision of these other traditions.

This 1960 lithograph made waves gesturally vibrant through large 116cm bold sweeping fluid forms and cream-paper energetic optical movement, using mature printmaking to transform painting brushstroke into graphic gesture beyond German Expressionist formal compositional control.

It matters because de Kooning printed waves and made the paper feel like it was still moving with the energy of a man who never stopped painting—proving that even a print could be a gesture if the lithography was bold enough.