Frank O’Hara, 1926–1966 Elaine de Kooning, 1918–1989 Franz Kline, 1910–1962

During the 1950s, when New York City became the center of the art world, the Cedar Tavern in Greenwich Village was the preferred meeting spot for the city’s avant-garde artists, writers, and musi- cians. The artist Elaine de Kooning was at the very heart of it; although, later in life, she noted that she “didn’t know then that I had somehow made my way to the red-hot center.” New York was indeed a cultural capital.

This photograph depicts de Kooning at a café table with two good friends, the poet Frank O’Hara (left) and the painter Franz Kline (right). O’Hara appears to react to something de Kooning has said, as he lifts his right hand up against his cheek.

National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution