women or anti-women, instead remarking, “Certainly he has never given public support to feminist or Women’s Lib causes…”3. This statement indicates de Kooning may have favored the latter. The ambiguity that Hess includes in response to the Women Series, draws from his credibility and it becomes harder to see de Kooning’s series as a sort of “criticism”. It more likely represented an understanding and remedy of expectation for the artist, relating to the “women’s place” in the 1950s. Elaine de Kooning’s response to the final Woman Series offers little support to the violent and aggressive characterizations of the series, but does mirror Crehan’s juxtaposition of desire and fear with the juxtaposition of apotheosis and destruction, a personal conflict for the artist. In an essay titled, “Content is a glimpse”, de Kooning alludes to the generator of this conflict, “I think it had to do with the idea of the idol, you know, the oracle, and above all the hilariousness of it. I do think that if I don’t look upon life that way, I won’t know how to keep on being around.”4. De Kooning is conscious of the relation between his Women Series and the iconography of the American Women, but the latter part of his statement alludes to a deeper psychological conflict, one of insecurity and anxiety, a world where he wouldn’t feel comfortable. The feelings of insecurity and anxiety represent an upheaval of firmly held ideas of beliefs and expectations, a process which began with the permeation of the American female icon, Art historian and author Sally Yard remarked after an interview with de Kooning, “Rather, his was a dream of prosperity: to become a commercial artist, make money, play tennis, and find those long-legged American girls”5, those “long-legged American girls” are further described in and Hess’s definition of the pin up girl, “‘wide-eyed, long-legged, ample hips and breasts, and all above with the open, friendly smile that discloses perfect, even, white teeth.”2. De>