In 1969, de Kooning’s interests turned to sculpture and printmaking. The sculptures began from a chance meeting in Rome, in the summer of 1969, where de Kooning made a group of small clay figures which were cast in bronze. In 1972–74, he made larger, almost life-size maquettes for sculptures.

De Kooning’s return to printmaking was mediated by a visit to Japan in 1970, where he saw and admired calligraphy and sumi brush painting. In 1970–71, he made 20 lithographs—both abstract and quasi-figurative compositions, loosely composed, and incorporating a variety of painterly effects.

In 1975, he returned to painting with renewed focus and began an ambitious series of what one critic called “landscapes of the body”—compositions that again fuse abstraction, landscape, and the female body.