Willem De Kooning
Biography
Willem de Kooning was an American-Dutch painter who helped form the Abstract Expressionist movement. His gestural works; often loosely based on figures, landscapes, and still lifes helped establish a distinct American style of painting.
Influenced by Pablo Picasso’s work, his paintings feature an original approach to deconstructing the figure. “I don’t paint with ideas of art in mind. I see something that excites me. It becomes my content,” the De Kooning once explained.
In his early career he worked as an apprentice to the commercial artists Jan and Jaap Gidding, in Rotterdam, as an Art director of a Rotterdam department store, and in the mural division of the Works Progress Administration Federal Art Project. Later, as he grew as an independent artist he would to teach at the Black Mountain College in North Carolina and Yale University in Connecticut.
His wife, Elaine de Kooning, was a notable painter in her own right.
Today, his works are held in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Tate Gallery in London, and the Kunstmuseum Basel, among others.
Born: 1904
Died: 1997
Education: Rotterdam Academy of Fine Arts & Letters
Exhibitions
Select Exhibitions
2017
Human Interest: Portraits from the Whitney’s Collection, WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART
Abstract Expressionism, ROYAL ACADEMY OF ARTS MAYFAIR | LONDON | UK
2015
Willem de Kooning: From the John and Kimiko Powers Collection ARTIZON MUSEUM CHUO-KU | TOKYO | JAPAN
2013
Willem de Kooning: Ten Paintings 1983-1985
GAGOSIAN GALLERY, NEW YORK (980 MADISON AVENUE) UPPER EAST SIDE | NEW YORK | USA
2010
Modern Times: responding to chaos – Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, UK
Modern in America: Works on Paper, 1900–1950s – The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
2009
MOCA´s First Thirty Years – MOCA Grand Avenue, Los Angeles, CA
Originalgrafiken, Zeichnungen und Skulpturen – Galerie Biedermann, Munich, Germany
American Abstractions Part 2: Paintings 1950’s – Present – Katharina Rich Perlow Gallery, New York, NY
The Robert and Jane Meyerhoff Collection: Selected Works – The National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
The Figure and Dr Freud – Haunch of Venison – New York, New York, NY
Bilderträume. Die Sammlung Ulla und Heiner Pietzsch – Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin, Germany
2008
De Kooning, Mitchell, Richter: Paintings from the 1980s, Tina Kim Gallery, New York, NY
New Acquisitions: The Moderns, Leslie Sacks Fine Art, Los Angeles, CA
Willem de Kooning, Lucio Fontana, Eva Hesse, Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York, NY
Action/Abstraction: Pollock, de Kooning, and American Art, 1940-1976, The Jewish Miseum, New York, NY
Willem de Kooning: Works on Paper, Xavier Hufkens, Brussels, Belgium
2007
Willem de Kooning: The Last Beginning, Gagosian Gallery, New York, NY
2006
Willem de Kooning: Paintings 1975-1978, L&M Arts, New York, NY
Willem de Kooning, The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia
American Masters, Leslie Sacks Fine Art, Los Angeles, CA
2005–2006
de Kooning: Paintings 1960-1980, Kunstmuseum, Basel, Switzerland
2002
Willem de Kooning: Tracing the Figure, Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Los Angeles, CA
Willem de Kooning: Tracing the Figure, Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Los Angeles, CA
2001
de Kooning and John Chamberlain: Influence and Transformation, Pace Wildenstein, New York, NY
Willem de Kooning: 1987 Paintings, Matthew Marks Gallery, New York, NY
1997
de Kooning: The Late Paintings, The 1980s, The Walker Art Center, San Francisco, CA
1996
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
Kunstmuseum Bonn, Bonn, Germany
1995
Thomas Ammann Fine Art, Zurich, Switzerland
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA
1994
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
1993
C&M Arts, New York, NY
Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, D.C.
1990
Salander-O’Reilly Galleries, New York, NY
1987
Margo Leavin Gallery, London, England
Richard Gray Gallery, Chicago, IL
1986
Fabian Carlsson Gallery, London, England
1985
Studio Marconi, Milan, Italy
1984
Willem de Kooning – Zeichnungen, Gemälde, Skulpturen, Akademie der Künste Berlin, Germany
1983
de Kooning: The North Atlantic Light, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Holland
1982
C. Grimaldis Gallery, Baltimore, MD
Xavier Fourcade Inc., New York
1981
Janie C. Lee Gallery, Houston, TX
Guild Hall, East Hampton, New York
1980
Richard Hines Gallery, Seattle, WA
Richard Gray Gallery, Chicago, IL
Galerie Hans Strelow, Dusseldorf, Germany
1979
St. Louis Art Museum, St. Louis, MD
Pittsburgh International Series, Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA
1978
de Kooning in East Hampton, Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY
De Kooning 1969-1978, University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, IA
1976–1977
Painting and Sculpture, organized by the Smithsonian Institution Washington, DC (exhibition opened in Belgrade, Yugoslavia)
Paris-New York, Centre Georges Pompidou Paris, France
1976
Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA
Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
Gimpel Fils, London, England
1974
University of Alabama, University (toured the United States)
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (toured the United States and Canada)
1972
Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD
1971
M. Knoedler and Company, New York, NY
1969
Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY (retrospective)
1968
Peintures Récentes, M. Knoedler et Cie, Paris, France
Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (retrospective; travelled to the Tate Gallery, London)
1967
M. Knoedler and Company, New York, NY
1965
Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, Massachusetts (retrospective; travelled to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge)
1964
‘Woman’ Drawings by Willem de Kooning, James Goodman Gallery, Buffalo, New York, NY
1962
Barnett Newman and Willem de Kooning, Allan Stone Gallery, New York, NY
1961
Paul Kantor Gallery, Beverly Hills, CA
1958
The New American Painting, Museum of Modern Art New York, NY
1955
Martha Jackson Gallery, New York, NY
1953
Retrospective, School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, MA
1948
De Kooning, Egan Gallery, New York, NY
Annual Exhibition, Whitney Museum of American Art New York, NY
1944
Abstract and Surrealist Art in America, Mortimer Brandt Gallery New York, NY
1942
American and French Painting, McMillen Inc. New York, NY
1936
New Horizons in American Art, Museum of Modern Art New York, NY