Willem de Kooning

For the academy named after him, seeWillem de Kooning Academy.

Willem de Kooning
De Kooning in his studio in 1961
Born	(1904-04-24)April 24, 1904 Rotterdam,Netherlands
Died	March 19, 1997(1997-03-19)(aged 92) East Hampton,New York
Nationality	Dutch, USA
Known for	Abstract expressionism
Notable work	Woman I,Easter Monday,Attic,Excavation
Spouse	Elaine de Kooning ​ (m.1943)​
Awards	Presidential Medal of Freedom(1964) Edward MacDowell Medal(1975) National Medal of Arts(1986) Praemium Imperiale(1989)
Signature

Willem de Kooning(/dəˈkuːnɪŋ/;Dutch:[ˈʋɪləmdəˈkoːnɪŋ];April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was aDutch-Americanabstract expressionistartist. Born inRotterdam,in the Netherlands, he moved to the United States in 1926, becoming a US citizen in 1962.In 1943, he married painterElaine Fried.

In the years after World War II, de Kooning painted in a style that came to be referred to asabstract expressionismor "action painting",and was part of a group of artists that came to be known as theNew York School.Other painters in this group includedJackson Pollock,Elaine de Kooning,Lee Krasner,Franz Kline,Arshile Gorky,Mark Rothko,Hans Hofmann,John Ferren,Nell Blaine,Adolph Gottlieb,Anne Ryan,Robert Motherwell,Philip Guston,Clyfford Still,andRichard Pousette-Dart.De Kooning's retrospective held atMoMAin 2011–2012 made him one of the best-known artists of the 20th century.

Biography

Plaque affixed on de Kooning's house of birth in Rotterdam, Netherlands

Willem de Kooning was born inRotterdam,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 ofcommercial artists.Until 1924 he attended evening classes in Rotterdam at theAcademie van Beeldende Kunsten en Technische Wetenschappen(Academy of Fine Arts and Applied Sciences), now theWillem de Kooning Academie. In 1926, de Kooning traveled to the United States as astowawayon theShelley,a British freighter bound for Argentina, and on August 15 landed atNewport News, Virginia.He intended to become an illustrator ofpulp magazines;he recalled in 1969 that "those American illustrators were the most inspiring artists to me!"He stayed at theDutch Seamen's HomeinHoboken, New Jersey,and found work as a house painter. In 1927, he moved toManhattan,where he had a studio on West Forty-fourth Street. He supported himself with jobs in carpentry, house painting and commercial art.

De Kooning began painting in his free time, and in 1928 he joined theart colonyatWoodstock, New York.He also began to meet some of themodernistartists active in Manhattan. Among them were the AmericanStuart Davis,the ArmenianArshile Gorkyand the RussianJohn Graham,whom de Kooning collectively called the "Three Musketeers".Gorky, whom de Kooning first met at the home ofMisha Reznikoff,became a close friend and, for at least ten years, an important influence.Balcomb Greenesaid that "de Kooning virtually worshipped Gorky"; according toAristodimos Kaldis,"Gorky was de Kooning's master".De Kooning's drawingSelf-portrait with Imaginary Brother,from about 1938, may show him with Gorky; the pose of the figures is that of a photograph of Gorky withPeter Busain about 1936.

Mural by de Kooning at the Hall of Pharmacy,1939 New York World's Fair

De Kooning joined theArtists Unionin 1934, and in 1935 was employed in theFederal Art Projectof theWorks Progress Administration,for which he designed a number of murals including some for theWilliamsburg Federal Housing ProjectinBrooklyn.None of them were executed,but a sketch for one was included inNew Horizons in American Artat theMuseum of Modern Art,his first group show. Starting in 1937, when De Kooning had to leave the Federal Art Project because he did not have American citizenship, he began to work full-time as an artist, earning income from commissions and by giving lessons.That year de Kooning was assigned to a portion of the muralMedicinefor theHall of Pharmacyat the1939 World's Fair in New York,which drew the attention of critics, the images themselves so completely new and distinct from the era ofAmerican realism.

De Kooning met his wife,Elaine Fried,at theAmerican Artists Schoolin New York. She was 14 years his junior. Thus was to begin a lifelong partnership affected by alcoholism, lack of money, love affairs, quarrels and separations. They were married on December 9, 1943. De Kooning worked on his first series ofportrait paintings:standing or sedentary men likeTwo Men Standing,Man,andSeated Figure (Classic Male),even combining withself-portraitsas withPortrait with Imaginary Brother(1938–39). At this time, de Kooning's work borrowed strongly from Gorky's surrealist imagery and was influenced byPicasso.This changed only when de Kooning met the younger painterFranz Kline,who was also working with the figurative style ofAmerican realismand had been drawn to monochrome. Kline, who died young, was one of de Kooning's closest artist friends. Kline's influence is evident in de Kooning's calligraphicblack imagesof this period.

During the late 1940s and early '50s, de Kooning joined other fellow contemporary artists including Jackson Pollock and Franz Kline, in their struggle to break free from common artistic movements of the era including Cubism, Surrealism and Regionalism. Their emotive gestures and abstract pieces were a result of their attempt to abandon the other movements. This movement was later called "Abstract Expressionism" sometimes known as "Action Painting" and the "New York School".

Between 1948 and 1953, de Kooning became more well known for his artistic techniques but he tried not to repeat himself.

De Kooning in 1968

In the late 1950s, de Kooning's work shifted away from the figurative work of the women (though he would return to that subject matter on occasion) and began to display an interest in more abstract, less representational imagery.He became a US citizen on March 13, 1962, and in the following year moved from Broadway to a small house inEast Hampton,a house which Elaine's brother Peter Fried had sold to him two years before. He built a studio near by, and lived in the house to the end of his life.

It was revealed that, toward the end of his life, de Kooning had begun to lose his memory in the late 1980s and had been suffering fromAlzheimer's diseasefor some time.This revelation has initiated considerable debate among scholars and critics about how responsible de Kooning was for the creation of his late work.

Succumbing to the progression of his disease, de Kooning painted his final works in 1991. He died in 1997 at the age of 92and was cremated.

Marriage to Elaine de Kooning

Elaine had admired Willem's artwork before meeting him; in 1938 her teacher introduced her to de Kooning at a Manhattan cafeteria when she was 20 and he 34. After meeting, he began to instruct her in drawing and painting. They painted in Willem's loft at 143 West 21st Street, and he was known for his harsh criticism of her work, "sternly requiring that she draw and redraw a figure or still life and insisting on fine, accurate, clear linear definition supported by precisely modulated shading."He even destroyed many of her drawings, but this "impelled Elaine to strive for both precision and grace in her work".When they married in 1943, she moved into his loft and they continued sharing studio spaces.

Elaine and Willem de Kooning had what was later called anopen marriage;they both were casual about sex and about each other's affairs. Elaine had affairs with men who helped further Willem's career, such asHarold Rosenberg,who was a renowned art critic, Thomas B. Hess, who was a writer about art and managing editor forARTnews,and Charles Egan, owner of theCharles Egan Gallery.

Willem had a daughter, Lisa de Kooning, in 1956, as a result of his affair with Joan Ward.He also had a romance withRuth Kligmanafter her affair with Jackson Pollock ended with his death in a car crash in 1956.

Elaine and Willem both struggled with alcoholism, which eventually led to their separation in 1957.While separated, Elaine remained in New York, struggling with poverty, and Willem moved toLong Islandand dealt with depression. Despite bouts with alcoholism, they both continued painting. Although separated for nearly twenty years, they never divorced, and ultimately reunited in 1976.

Work

Early work

De Kooning's paintings of the 1930s and early 1940s are abstractstill-lifescharacterised by geometric orbiomorphicshapes and strong colours. They show the influence of his friends Davis, Gorky and Graham, but also ofArp,Joan Miró,MondrianandPablo Picasso.In the same years, de Kooning also painted a series of solitary male figures, either standing or seated, against undefined backgrounds; many of these are unfinished.

Black-and-white abstracts

By 1946, de Kooning had begun a series of black-and-white paintings, which he would continue into 1949. During this period he had his first one-man show at the Charles Egan Gallery in 1948 consisting largely of black-and-white works, although a few pieces have passages of bright color. De Kooning's black paintings are important to the history of abstract expressionism owing to their densely impacted forms, their mixed media, and their technique.

Woman III,1953, private collection

TheWomanseries

De Kooning as sculptor:Seated Woman on a Bench,bronze of 1972 (cast 1976), in theHirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden

De Kooning painted women regularly in the early and late 1940s, but it was not until 1950 that he began to explore the female subject exclusively. His well-knownWomanseries, begun in 1950 and culminating inWoman VI,owes much to Picasso, not least in the aggressive, penetrative breaking apart of the figure, and the spaces around it. Picasso's late works show signs that he, in turn, saw images of works by Pollock and de Kooning. De Kooning led the 1950s art world into a new movement known as Americanabstract expressionism."From 1940 to the present, Woman has manifested herself in de Kooning's paintings and drawings as at once the focus of desire, frustration, inner conflict, pleasure,… and as posing problems of conception and handling as demanding as those of an engineer."The female figure is an important symbol for de Kooning's art career and his own life. TheWomanpainting is considered as a significant work of art for the museum through its historical context about the post-World War II history and Americanfeministmovement. Additionally, the medium (oil, enamel, and charcoal on canvas) of this painting makes it different from others of de Kooning's time.

Notable works

The painter is noted for his paintings:Woman III(1953),Woman VI(1953),Interchange(1955), andPolice Gazette(1955). Some notable sculptures areClamdigger(1972/1976) andSeated Woman on a Bench(1972/1976).

Woman Standing - Pink,1954-5 Willem de Kooning

Gansevoort Street(c. 1949), Willem de Kooning

Market reception

Some of de Kooning's paintings have been sold in the 21st century for record prices. In November 2006, the American business magnateDavid Geffensold his oil paintingWoman IIItohedge fund managerSteven A. Cohenfor $137.5 million, just below the record at the time of $140 million, which involved the same people in the same month forJackson Pollock'sNo. 5, 1948.A month earlier Cohen had already paid Geffen $63.5 million forPolice Gazetteby de Kooning.In September 2015, Geffen sold de Kooning's oil paintingInterchangeto hedge-fund billionaireKen Griffinfor ca. $300 million, thehighest price paid for a paintingat the time.It held the record until November 15, 2017, when the da VinciSalvator Mundisold for $450 million atChristie'sin New York.In November 2016,Untitled XXVsold for $66.3 million at Christie's in New York. This was a record price for a de Kooning piece sold at public auction.

According to Patricia Failing:

By the end of the 1950s, in the opinion of many, the most influential painter at work for the world was the abstract expressionist master William de Kooning. Although it was 1948 before he was given his first one man show, de Kooning had previously acquired a formidable underground reputation which served to boost him to prominence, along withJackson Pollock,as a leading exponent of "action painting."

The estate of Willem de Kooning is represented byPace Gallery.

Solo exhibitions

The artist was featured in a number of solo exhibitions from 1948 to 1966, many in New York but also nationally and internationally. Specifically, he had 14 separate exhibitions, with two exhibitions per annum in the years 1953, 1964, and 1965. He was featured at theEgan Gallery,theSidney Janis Gallery,theMuseum of Fine Arts, Boston,theArts Club of Chicago,theMartha Jackson Gallery,the Workshop Center, the Paul Kantor Gallery, the Hames Goodman Gallery, the Allan Stone Gallery, and the Smith College Museum of Art. Most of the exhibitions lasted for three weeks to one month.Most recent exhibition,De Kooning: Five Decades,took place in the Mnuchin Gallery, New York City, from April 19 till June 15, 2019.

See also

• American Figurative Expressionism
• Erased de Kooning Drawing
• Impasto
• New York Figurative Expressionism

Further reading

• Marika Herskovic,American Abstract and Figurative Expressionism Style Is Timely Art Is Timeless An Illustrated Survey With Artists' Statements, Artwork and Biographies.(New York School Press, 2009).ISBN978-0-9677994-2-1.pp. 76–79; p. 127; p. 136.
• Marika Herskovic,American Abstract Expressionism of the 1950s: An Illustrated Survey,(New York School Press, 2003).ISBN0-9677994-1-4.pp. 94–97.
• Marika Herskovic,New York School Abstract Expressionists: Artists Choice by Artists,(New York School Press, 2000).ISBN0-9677994-0-6.p. 16; p. 36; p. 106–109.
• Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan, "de Kooning: An American Master", 2004, Knopf, Borzoi BooksISBN1-4000-4175-9
• Hall, Lee(1993).Elaine and Bill, Portrait of a Marriage: The Lives of Willem and Elaine de Kooning.New York City, NY: HarperCollins Publishing.ISBN9780060183059.
• Edvard Lieber,Willem de Kooning: Reflections in the Studio,2000, Harry N. Abrams, Inc.ISBN0-8109-4560-6
• ART USA NOWEd. Lee Nordness; Vol.1, (Viking Press, 1963.) pp. 134–137.
• Richard Shiff,On "Between Sense and de Kooning",The Montréal Review,September 2011.
• Judith Zilczer, "Willem de Kooning."Phaidon Press,2017.ISBN978-0-7148-7316-9

External links

• Willem de Kooning Foundation
• Willem de Kooningat theMuseum of Modern Art
• Links to reproductions
• Willem de KooningatXavier Hufkens,Brussels
• Woman in the Pool(1969)Phoenix Art Museum
• de Kooning's work in the Guggenheim Collection
• Willem de Kooning in the National Gallery of Australia's Kenneth Tyler collection
• Sam Hunter,"Willem de Kooning Lecture", The Baltimore Museum of Art: Baltimore, Maryland, 1964Retrieved June 26, 2012
• Frank O'Hara — Rainbow Warrior
• A small-town couple left behind a stolen painting worth over $100 million — and a big mystery,Washington Post
• The American Presidency Project
• Lifetime Honors – National Medal of Arts