Willem de Kooning
Willem de Kooning
Willem de Kooning was one of the 20th Century’s most renowned, prolific, and multifaceted artists. Born in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, in 1904, de Kooning trained as a commercial artist, and also studied fine art at the Rotterdam Academy, the Académie royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, and the van Schelling School of Design in Antwerp. In 1926, the artist traveled by ship as a stowaway to Hoboken, New Jersey, eventually making his way to New York City, where during the 1930s and 1940s he established his place in the Manhattan art world, becoming known for his ghostly portraits of solitary male figures.
Influenced by painter colleagues such as Stuart Davis, Arshile Gorky, and Franz Kline, de Kooning eventually turned to abstraction, creating a series of dripping, biomorphic, mostly black-and-white paintings which were exhibited at the Charles Egan Gallery in 1948 and received enormous critical acclaim. Shortly thereafter the artist’s monumental Excavation, 1950, part of this same body of work, was selected by the New York Museum of Modern Art director Alfred Barr to represent the United States at the Venice Biennale. The painting also received the Art Institute of Chicago’s Logan Medal and Purchase Prize.
De Kooning soon began to combine his efforts in both figuration and abstraction with his “Woman” series, starting with Woman, I, 1950-52, a painting that is now part of the collection of the Museum of Modern Art. The intense, often violent-seeming works conflate figure and ground, so that the female form, complete with large breasts and sharp teeth, begins to break apart and converge with the surrounding context of harsh, jagged lines. These vital paintings secured de Kooning as a central figure, alongside Jackson Pollock, in the New York School of artists, also known as the Abstract Expressionist movement.
During his lifetime, de Kooning exhibited his work at many prominent art institutions, including the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, the Tate Gallery, London, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. In 2011, the artist was the posthumous subject of a major retrospective at MoMA, New York, organized by Chief Curator Emeritus of Painting and Sculpture John Heartfield, which featured an enormous variety of works spanning the seven decades of his career.
Video
The Meeting of Edgard Varèse and Charlie Paker
March 22, 2017
Special concert led by Peter Evans, in celebration of the exhibition 'Willem de Kooning | Zao Wou-Ki.'
Exhibitions
Willem de Kooning | Zao Wou-Ki
New York
January 19 - March 11, 2017
Willem de KooningWillem de Kooning: Figure & Light
Los Angeles
November 12, 2010 - January 15, 2011
Willem de KooningPaintings & Drawings
New York
July 7 - September 9, 2008
Willem de KooningWillem de Kooning: 1981-1986
New York
September 11 - November 17, 2007
Willem de KooningWillem de Kooning: Paintings 1975 - 1978
New York
April 20 - June 3, 2006
Museum Exhibitions
Advanced and Irascible: Abstract Expressionism from the Collection of Jeanne and Carroll Berry
January 14 - April 30, 2017
When Modern Was Contemporary: Selections from the Roy R. Neuberger Collection
February 15 - May 21, 2017
Masterworks from the Hirshhorn Collection
June 9 - August 6, 2017
Selected Press
Bloomberg | De Kooning's 'Untitled XII' Sells for $35 Million
March 27, 2018
Lifestyle Asia | Art Basel Hong Kong 2018: Here are all the fair highlights you don’t want to miss
March 21, 2018
Australia Financial Review | Paul Allen dangles $45 million (AUD) de Kooning for Asian billionaires
March 21, 2018
South China Morning Post | Billionaire woos Asian collectors with US$35 million de Kooning at Art Basel Hong Kong
March 21, 2018
Barrons | Paul Allen to Sell ‘Untitled XII’ by Willem de Kooning for $35M at Art Basel Hong Kong
March 21, 2018
Art Asia Pacific | Lévy Gorvy to present USD 35 million Willem de Kooning painting at 2018 Art Basel Hong Kong
March 19, 2018
Artnet | Art Industry News
March 19, 2018
Bloomberg Quint | Allen Woos Asian Billionaires With $35 Million de Kooning
March 18, 2018
Bloomberg | Billionaire Plans to Part With $35 Million Painting at Hong Kong’s Art Basel
March 18, 2018
Hamptons Art Hub | Readers Choice: Most Popular 15 Stories in 2017
December 27, 2017
Hamptons Art Hub | ART REVIEW: De Kooning and Zao Wou-Ki Paintings Trace Paths to Abstraction
February 7, 2017
Cultured | Second Act
February 1, 2017
Artnet | Lévy Gorvy Demonstrates Art World Clout at Inaugural New York Exhibition
January 20, 2017
Art Observed | Go See – Los Angeles: Willem de Kooning 'Figure & Light'
January 2, 2011
Los Angeles Times | Art review: Willem de Kooning at L&M Arts
December 16, 2010
The New York Sun | Composing Without Composure
May 18, 2006
More Information
Artists
Alexander Calder
Enrico Castellani
Chung Sang-Hwa
Francesco Clemente
Dan Colen
Willem de Kooning
Lucio Fontana
Gego
Yves Klein
Jutta Koether
Seung-taek Lee
Robert Motherwell
Senga Nengudi
Roman Opalka
Adrian Piper
Michelangelo Pistoletto
Carol Rama
Martial Raysse
Peter Regli
Germaine Richier
Karin Schneider
Joel Shapiro
Kazuo Shiraga
Pierre Soulages
Pat Steir
Tu Hongtao
Günther Uecker
Zao Wou-Ki
Specializing in Works By
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- Cecily Brown
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- Vija Celmins
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- Ellsworth Kelly
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- Franz Kline
- Jeff Koons
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- Gerald Laing
- Fernand Léger
- Roy Lichtenstein
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- Richard Serra
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