Clamdigger (de Kooning)

Clamdigger is a bronze sculpture by Willem de Kooning.

[1] It may have been inspired by "the men who dug for clams along the beaches" near his home in East Hampton, New York.

[2] It has been described as one of his "extraordinarily tactile figurative sculptures" that "seemed pulled from the primordial ooze,"[3] and "as part man, part creature of the mud and the shallows.

"[5] As of 2014, Clamdigger is on display in the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.

[6] De Kooning, known for his abstract expressionist paintings, took up sculpture later in his career, after a 1969 visit with a friend in Italy "who had a small foundry.