A Dignified Goodbye

The funeral of Willem de Kooning at St. Luke's Episcopal Church in East Hampton on Saturday was attended by a crowd of friends, neighbors, artists, and big names of the New York art world, many of whom came from Manhattan.

But where was the press? The family and East Hampton Village police had expected more of a showing and made careful preparations to keep the occasion dignified. They needn't have feared. The pushing papparazzi who attended the DISHES models volleyball game last summer and the polo parties weren't around. The big red and white helicopters that buzzed the beaches when Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger got married here weren't called out.

If this had been Paris and an artist of de Kooning's magnitude had died, the streets would have been closed for the funeral and crowds would have lined the sidewalks.

Especially on a week that witnessed the national folly called the Academy Awards Ceremony, it may be comforting to those who were close to the great artist, but simple man, that he was allowed to go in peace.

Nevertheless, it tells us a lot about culture in the United States in our time.