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Willem de Kooning was born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, on April 24, 1904. His parents, Leendert de Kooning and Cornelia Nobel, were divorced in 1907, and de Kooning lived first with his father and then with his mother. He left school in 1916 and became an apprentice in a firm of commercial artists.
In 1963, de Kooning moved from New York City to Springs, in East Hampton, Long Island. Manipulating space as a sculptor would, he designed and built a soaring, butterfly-roofed, light-filled studio and home in a quiet, wooded neighborhood where he worked through the sixties before moving in permanently in 1971.
- Born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, Willem de Kooning left school to begin working when he was only 12 years old, taking an apprenticeship at a design and decoration firm.
- De Kooning immigrated to America illegally, as a secret stowaway on a ship in 1926.
- He began working for the WPA Federal Art Project in 1935, but left after less than two years due to his lack of citizenship and fear that he would be found out.
- Beginning his career at around the height of Pablo Picasso’s fame, De Kooning, like many contemporaneous artists, had trouble in the beginning of their careers competing with the Parisian avant-garde art scene; he commented, “Picasso is the man to beat.”
Apr 2, 2014 · Early Life. Born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, in 1904, Willem de Kooning embraced the artistic path at a young age, dropping out of school when he was 12 to begin an apprenticeship in...
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.
It did not take long after de Kooning moved to Springs, East Hampton, that he again took up the figure. While he was still very much interested in pin-ups and pop stars, he also turned his attention to those who lived near him and frequented the beaches.
Feb 28, 2019 · He found his way north toward New York City and temporarily lived at the Dutch Seamen's Home in Hoboken, New Jersey. A short time later, in 1927, Willem de Kooning opened his first studio in Manhattan and supported his art with outside employment in commercial art such as store window designs and advertising.
