Willem de Kooning

For the academy named after him, see Willem de Kooning Academy.

Willem de Kooning
De Kooning in his studio in 1961
Born(1904-04-24)April 24, 1904
Rotterdam, Netherlands
DiedMarch 19, 1997(1997-03-19) (aged 92)
East Hampton, New York[1]
NationalityDutch, American
Known forAbstract expressionism
Notable workWoman I, Easter Monday, Attic, Excavation
Spouse
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(m. 1943; died 1989)​
AwardsPresidential Medal of Freedom (1964)
Edward MacDowell Medal (1975)
National Medal of Arts (1986)
Praemium Imperiale (1989)
Signature

Willem de Kooning (/də ˈkuːnɪŋ/ də KOO-ning,[2] Dutch: [ˈʋɪləm də ˈkoːnɪŋ]; April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was a Dutch-American abstract expressionist artist. Born in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, he moved to the United States in 1926, becoming a US citizen in 1962.[3] In 1943, he married painter Elaine Fried.

In the years after World War II, de Kooning painted in a style that came to be referred to as abstract expressionism or "action painting", and was part of a group of artists that came to be known as the New York School. Other painters in this group included Jackson 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, and Richard Pousette-Dart. De Kooning's retrospective held at MoMA in 2011–2012 made him one of the best-known artists of the 20th century.[4]

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  4. ^ McGlynn, Tom (June 5, 2019). "De Kooning: Five Decades". The Brooklyn Rail. Retrieved February 25, 2020.