Kooning

Willem de Kooning (April 24, 1904 – February 19, 1997) was a Dutch-American painter and a central figure in Abstract Expressionism. He was associated with the New York School and helped shape postwar American painting through a distinctive fusion of figuration and abstraction.

Born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, de Kooning studied at the Rotterdamsche Kunstacademie before immigrating to the United States in 1926. He settled in New York City, where he worked various jobs while pursuing art and participated in the Works Progress Administration program during the 1930s. He married fellow painter Elaine Fried in 1943.

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, de Kooning developed a vigorous, gestural style that often combined aggressive brushwork with figurative elements. He is best known for the Woman series created between 1950 and the mid-1950s, which feature distorted, powerful female figures painted with thick impasto and dynamic line. His work from this period sits at the intersection of figuration and abstraction, revealing a continuous search for form and energy. Later in his career, he produced more expansive, lyrical abstractions that emphasized color, movement, and spatial ambiguity.

De Kooning’s paintings are held in major museums around the world, and his influence extends to many later artists who explored gesture, form, and the boundaries between representation and abstraction. He died in New York in 1997, leaving a lasting legacy in modern art.