Art: UPTOWN: Feb. 14, 1964

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WILLEM DE KOONING—Stone, 48 East 86th. Manhattan's Dutch-born modern master tries on lines the way poets try out words. Because he begins with plan and ends with chaotic inspiration, De Kooning's first drawing retrospective provides illuminating clues to the natural forms that shape his abstractions, to the explicitness with which he builds ambiguity, to how his art is made. Forty-odd drawings in charcoal, pencil, pastel, sumi-ink and Sapolin include classical studies of the '30s, samplings from the "Boudoir" and "Attic" series, sketches for Pink Angel (the painting that reportedly copped $60,000 last year), and 16 new pencil lyrics on his most recurrent theme, women. Through Feb. 29.

FLEMISH MASTERS—Duveen, 18 East 79th. No Rembrandts, but no letdown either, because in this show Rembrandt's countrymen outdo themselves: Portrait by Van Dyck, Nymph by Rubens, The Last Judgment by Hieronymus Bosch, The Madonna and Child with Angels by Hans Memling. Sundry other splendors. Through March 31.

KARL KNATHS—Rosenberg, 20 East 79th. The Cape Cod beachcomber looks for poetry and finds it. Painter Knaths, 72, splits space into cubistic slabs of color, lets the canvas—by exposing it here and there—speak for itself, sending blasts of light through black architectural frames. A mixed bag of 18 recent still lifes, landscapes and wild deer makes an attractive show. Through Feb. 29.

LEONARD BASKIN—Borgenicht, 1018 Madison Ave. at 78th. Nine new enigmas in bronze and wood from Smith College's bearded sculpture prof. Huge hulking owls, masks of poets and inscrutable birdmen make a cryptic metaphor of death and immortality. Through Feb. 29.

GEORGES ROUAULT—Perls, 1016 Madison Ave. at 78th. The prolific Frenchman painted thousands, burned hundreds; 20 oils, spanning 50 years, give a spare but instructive glimpse of his trademarks. Fauvist paintings of 1906-07 show passion for pure color; later, thick black lines begin to silhouette jeweled blues and clarets; the "dawn" paintings of the 1950s burst with chrome yellows and greens. Through March 7.

EDUARDŌ RAMIREZ and EDGAR NEGRET—Graham, 1014 Madison Ave. at 78th (third floor). Two modern classicists from Colombia. In Ramirez' wood reliefs, white shade echoes white light, in which an occasional note of intense blue or black resounds. Negret makes bright, painted aluminum sculptures. A decorative show. Through Feb. 29.

EARLY AMERICAN PORTRAITS—Graham, 1014 Madison Ave. at 78th (second floor). The masters in oil: Robert Feke, John Wollaston, Charles Willson Peale, Gilbert Stuart and Thomas Sully. Keeping them company with drawings: Benjamin West, Thomas Anshutz, others. Until March 21.

CLEVE GRAY—Staempfli, 47 East 77th. A sensitive colorist, Gray smears his canvases with dark primaries and brilliant pastels, composing his abstractions with a sure feel for tonal balance and direction in space. Best: Vernal, a large dynamic treatment of vertical blues against white. Through Feb. 22.