Born in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, in 1904, Willem de Kooning emigrated to New York in 1926 and went on to become one of the best-known exponents of Abstract Expressionism. De Koonings’ painted works feature biomorphic shapes and dynamic brushwork, and his famous Woman series of paintings featuring female figures has found its place in the art historical canon. His continual reworking of the overlapping forms leads to a compositional ambiguity, making it hard to distinguish foreground from background and pushing the subject itself further into abstraction.
De Kooning continued to paint well into his eighties. His later works are pared-down compared to the early paintings, though the use of biomorphic lines shows the continuity that runs throughout his oeuvre. His work has been the subject of numerous large-scale exhibitions, notably at the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg in 2006, and can be found in numerous private and public collections throughout the world, including the Hirshorn Museum in Washington, D.C. and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. De Kooning died in 1997 in Long Island.
Publications
Works
Exhibitions
Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris, France
Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, PA, USA
Gagosian Gallery, New York. NY, USA
Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, USA
Pace Gallery, New York, NY, USA
L&M Arts, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Xavier Hufkens, Brussels, Belgium
Gagosian Gallery, New York, NY, USA
L&M Arts, New York, NY, USA
L&M Arts, New York, NY; USA
Bank Austria Kunstforum Wien, Vienna, Austria
Kunsthal Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands
Kunstmuseum Basel, Basel, Switzerland
Gagosian Gallery, New York, NY, USA
Mitchell, Innes & Nash, New York, NY, USA
Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Germany
Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, USA
Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein, Vaduz, Liechtenstein
Neues Museum Weserburg Bremen, Germany
Pace Gallery, New York, NY, USA
Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, NY, USA
Guggenheim Bilbao Museum, Bilbao, Spain
Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn, Germany
Gagosian Gallery , New York, NY, USA
Kettle's Yard, Cambridge, UK
The Art Institute of Chicago, IL, USA
Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, USA
Galerie Karsten Greve, Paris, France
Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin, Germany
Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Nashville, TN, USA
Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, CA, USA
The Art Institute of Chicago, IL, USA
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY, USA
Galerie Karsten Greve, Paris, France
Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, Italy