Willem de Kooning
Willem de Kooning is one of America's central figures in the visual arts. Born in the Netherlands in 1904, de Kooning took evening classes at the Rotterdam Academy of Fine Arts and Techniques while working as a commercial artist. In 1926, de Kooning arrived in America as a stowaway. He found work as a house painter in Hoboken, New Jersey, before moving to New York City. His painting skill gained him work with the Federal Arts Project in 1935. At this time, de Kooning was producing realistic paintings. Beginning in the 1940s, however, de Kooning began to move away from a visible reality in his paintings, with bold strokes and a depth of immediacy to the brush strokes on the canvas. A solo exhibit in 1948 of his black and white abstractions became a revelation to New York's art circle. Soon, this style came to be called Abstract Expressionism, and de Kooning its leader, even though he never used the definition or the title for his style of work. Woman I, now in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and Excavation, now in the permanent collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, perhaps best represent de Kooning and this style. de Kooning continued to move in new directions with his painting for the rest of his life. He was inducted into the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1960, and received America's Freedom Award Medal in 1964. Although he was afflicted with Alzheimer's in his last decade, Willem de Kooning produced new work with flowing, beautiful lines and colors until just a few years before his death in 1997.
