Willem de Kooning

Willem de Kooning was born on April 24, 1904, into a working class family in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Driven by an acutely perceptive mind, a strong work ethic, and persistent self doubt – coupled with the determination to achieve – the charismatic de Kooning became one of America’s and the twentieth century’s most influential artists.

A first-generation Abstract Expressionist, Willem de Kooning is one of the most important artists of the 20th century. In 1950s New York, when painters such as Jackson Pollock and Franz Kline were moving toward pure abstraction, de Kooning developed a signature style that fused vivid color and aggressive paint handling with deconstructed images of the female form—a then-controversial body of work that has become known as his “Women” series. In his later years, de Kooning abandoned the figure, embracing lyrical abstraction and more discreet references to the body. Today, de Kooning’s innovative abstractions can be found in the public collections of Tate Modern, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., among others. The artist’s work has fetched more than $68 million at auction. Influenced by Arshile Gorky and Pablo Picasso, de Kooning was often thought to have blended abstraction, Cubism, and Surrealism, paving the way for generations of gestural painters such as Cecily Brown.

Reference:

Dekooning.org
Artsy.net