When in June 1963 Willem de Kooning settled permanently in Springs, Long Island, he returned to the depiction of women, a theme that had preoccupied him as early as 1938. The beach, one of Long Island’s characterizing features, where de Kooning sometimes went clam-digging, was his inspiration. He observed female figures walking or sitting on the sand or wading through water. The atmosphere, filled with shimmering light, dematerializes the figure, rendering it fluid, unstable, and floating, like a reflection in the water. Through the vigorous, even savage application of paint, the corporeal rawness of the nude figure is accentuated. De Kooning once said that “flesh is the reason oil paint was invented.”