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Willem de Kooning ( də KOO-ning, Dutch: [ˈʋɪləm də ˈkoːnɪŋ]; April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was a Dutch-American abstract expressionist artist. Born in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, he moved to the United States in 1926, becoming a US citizen in 1962. In 1943, he married painter Elaine Fried.
- Jackson Pollock
During the Cold War, Pollock’s paintings and those of his...
- Jackson Pollock
- Childhood and Early Training
- Mature Period
- Later Years and Death
- The Legacy of Willem de Kooning
Willem de Kooning was born in Rotterdam in the Netherlands in 1904, and his parents divorced when he was three. His mother, Cornelia Nobel, ran a bar and largely raised de Kooning on her own. He found his artistic vocation early and left school when he was twelve to apprentice at a commercial design and decorating firm. He then went on to study at ...
In the mid-1940s, De Kooning began a series of black and white abstractions, reportedly because he could not afford expensive pigments and had to turn to cheaper household enamels. With the pared-down color palette and the radical flattening of pictorial space, these abstractions, shown at the Charles Egan Gallery in 1948, portended the rise of Abs...
Thomas Hess described the settings for de Kooning's Women as "no-environment," indicating their ambiguous space, and his larger abstractions from mid-1950s seemed part and parcel of the gritty urban environment in which de Kooning lived. By the late 1950s, however, he was beginning to show interest in a new type of scenery. He began a series of Abs...
While Jackson Pollock has been extolled as the most important and influential Abstract Expressionist and influenced the likes of Allan Kaprow, many young painters at the time found that appropriating Pollock's process of painting tended to produce paintings that looked like Pollock's, but de Kooning's use of color and gestural application of paint,...
- American
- April 24, 1904
- Rotterdam, The Netherlands
- March 19, 1997
Willem de Kooning (də KOO-ning, Dutch: [ˈʋɪləm də ˈkoːnɪŋ]; April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was a Dutch-American abstract expressionist artist. Born in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, he moved to the United States in 1926, becoming a US citizen in 1962.
De Kooning's paintings of the 1930s and early 1940s are abstract still-lifes characterised by geometric or biomorphic shapes and strong colours. They show the influence of his friends Davis, Gorky and Graham, but also of Arp , Joan Miró , Mondrian and Pablo Picasso . [ 1 ]
In the present Abstraction, painted in 1949‒50, De Kooning reveals a new conception of painting based on gesture and colour — an accomplished style of his own that is far removed from any previous modern language.
De Kooning made both figurative and abstract art at various points in his career, sometimes concurrently. Of nonfigurative work, he said, "even abstract shapes must have a likeness."
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Jul 18, 2024 · Willem de Kooning was a pivotal figure in 20th-century art and a leading force in Abstract Expressionism. His dynamic brushwork, complex compositions, and profound exploration of form and space have cemented his legacy as one of the greatest artists of his time.
