Willem de Kooning (b. 1904, d. 1997)

Leading exponent of Abstract Expressionism, Willem de Kooning was born in Rotterdam. He trained as a commercial artist and attended evening courses at the Rotterdam Academie voor Beldende Kunsten en Technische Wetenschappen until 1924. Afterwards he studied at the Académie royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels and the van Schelling School of Design in Antwerp. In 1926, the young artist emigrated to the US. In New York, he met other artists, and worked for the Federal Art Project. From 1935, he was able to devote himself entirely to painting. He shared a studio with Gorky and his early pictures were influenced by Gorky's Surrealist style and by Picasso's painting. Contact with Jackson Pollock and Franz Kline inspired him to do his first black-and-white abstract works in 1946. From 1950 he developed his first "Women" pictures, shocking the art world with his 1953 exhibition at Sidney Janis Gallery. In 1963, he left New York to settle in Springs on Long Island. In 1964 he received one of the greatest distinctions awarded in America, the "Presidential Medal of Freedom". In 2011 de Kooning was honored with a large-scale retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, containing nearly 200 works.