Willem de Kooning (1904-1997)

The Dutch-born artist Willem de Kooning was the most consistent and longest-living Abstract Expressionist of his era. Other famous painters within this group included the "action-painter" Jackson Pollock, the "colour field" painters Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman and Clyfford Still, the versatile Robert Motherwell, and the "Hard-Edge" painter Franz Kline. De Kooning was primarily influenced by Cubism and Surrealism and in particular by the artists Pablo Picasso and Arshile Gorky (with whom he shared a studio). His most famous works include Woman and Bicycle, 1952 (Whitney Museum of American Art); Marilyn Monroe, 1954 (Private Collection) and Door to the River, 1960 (Whitney Museum of American Art). He is regarded by some critics as one of the great 20th century painters.

Door to the River, Whitney Museum
of American Art (1960).

Early Life

Born in Rotterdam, de Kooning studied fine art painting for several years at the Academie voor Beeldende Kunsten en Technische Wetenschappen. This traditional academic training helped him become a great draftsman, and he was capable of creating the most beautiful realistic drawings.

During the first half of the 1920s he worked as an assistant to the art director of a Rotterdam department store. In 1926 he sailed to America, as a stowaway on a British ship. He eventually settled in New York in 1927 where he supported himself as a painter and decorator, and created pictures in the evening.

Throughout his career his style would change considerably and - being often dissatisfied with his early works - he destroyed many of his canvasses.

Woman And Bicycle, Whitney Museum
of American Art (1952).

During the 1930s, De Kooning started a series of male figures, including Two Men Standing and Seated Figure. His work started off representational, but gradually as his colours heightened, abstraction began to emerge. Too poor to buy proper artist paint for his oil painting, he used black and white enamels. He painted a large series of abstract works in the late 1940s including Light in August, 1946; Zurich, 1947; Mailbox, 1947; Asheville, 1948; Black Friday, 1948 and Attic.

By the 1940s he had become identified with the Abstract Expressionism movement, and by the 1950s was recognised as one of its leaders. It is considered that he produced his best work between 1950 and 1963. In 1950 the Chicago Museum of Modern Art purchased his large composition, Excavation. This confirmed his growing reputation as one of the foremost practitioners of abstract art.

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De Kooning had his first Solo show at the Charles Egan Gallery in New York in 1948 and went on to teach at the Yale School of Art in 1950. He focused on painting women in the early 1950s, creating an exciting balance and tension in his works: between uncontrolled freedom and conscious control, between aggression and beauty and between abstraction and figurative. His women had exaggerated breasts and hips, and some critics felt that he was brutalizing the human form.

His best known works from this period include The Woman Paintings II to VI (1952); Woman and Bicycle, 1952 (Whitney Museum of American Art); Two Women in the Country, 1954 and his Corps de Dame series.

In a reflection of Willem de Kooning's status as one of the most famous artists in America, in 1953, Robert Rauschenberg (1925-2008) used one of de Kooning's sketches to create one of the first works of conceptual art, entitled: Erased de Kooning Drawing (1953). The work raised interesting questions about the nature of art. It now resides in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. De Kooning's influence also extended to European artists like the Dutch abstract painter Karel Appel (1921-2006).

In the late 1950s and early 1960s de Kooning's works became nearly pure abstract. Examples include Bolton Landing, 1957 and Door to the River, 1960. He also painted abstract landscapes and parkways.

In 1968 the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam held a retrospective of his work, while in 1974 the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis held a show of his drawings and sculpture and the Guggenheim Museum in New York held an exhibition in 1978.

In 1979 he received the Andrew W. Mellon Prize which resulted in an exhibition at the Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh.

Some art critics maintain that after 1963 de Kooning lost control and direction, turning out work with flabby colours and splodgy decoration. His last paintings are generally viewed as far from his best works, mainly due to the fact he developed Alzheimer's disease and was recovering from a life of alcoholism. Other critics insist that these works have yet to be truly assessed and are in fact boldly prophetic. De Kooning died in Long Island in 1997 at the grand old age of 92. Today he is considered a major influence in the history of art, especially semi-abstract contemporary art, and his paintings sell for well over $20 million. His works can be seen in some of the best art museums around the world. (See also: American Art:1750-present).

For biographical details of another semi-abstract American painter, please see: Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986).

• For information about contemporary artists in Ireland, see: Irish Art Encyclopedia.