Bacchus #3
During a visit to Paris in 1976, de Kooning saw a 19th-century Bacchus-inspired sculpture in the Jardin du Luxembourg, and upon returning to her temporary studio in Athens, Georgia, she subsequently began a series of large paintings based on Bacchus, the Roman god of wine and intoxication, and often equated with the Greek Dionysus. These paintings marked a brief return for de Kooning to the more traditional vertical canvas, but it was the first time she ever used acrylic paint.
Nicolas de Staël
1952
