Long Ago with Willem de Kooning
Rudy Burckhardt · Art Journal · 1989
Only gradually did I realize how much I learned from Edwin Denby and Willem de Kooning, neither of them a teacher.How did Edwin and I meet Bill? In 1935 we lived in a loft on Twenty-First between Sixth and Seventh and one day a black-and-white kitten came through the fire escape. It turned out to belong to Bill and Juliet, who lived next door. Before that, we'd been hearing loud hi-fi music drifting over: Flamenco, Louis Armstrong, Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms. We began visiting. A former girl friend, Nini, came around, too, and they all seemed to get along. I remember Bill saying once, No, he wasn't going to marry Juliet; if he was going to marry anybody it would be Nini.