Willem de Kooning

Willem de Kooning (1904 – 1997) was born in the Netherlands. He was an expressionist, doing abstract paintings, action painting and he followed the so called New York School. This was the time of Jackson Pollock, Arshile Gorky and Robert Motherwell and others.In 1926 De Kooning emigrated to the United States, working on a ship. When he finally arrived New Jersey, he first started working as a house painter. In 1927 he moved to a studio in Manhattan. In 1929 he met the painter Arshile Gorky, they worked together and became good friends. In 1935 De Kooning won the Logan Medal of the Arts, later, in 1938 under the influence of Gorky, De Kooning did series of male figures, later, in the early 1940 he started his famous series of Woman in a geometrical style. What was figurative in the beginnings became more and more abstract during the years.