Observer: The Continuing Reinvention of Willem de Kooning
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Willem de Kooning
Willem de Kooning was a Dutch-American abstract expressionist artist. Born in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, he moved to the United States in 1926, becoming a U.S. citizen in 1962. In 1943, he married painter Elaine Fried.
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culture · Dutch-American abstract expressionist artist (1904–1997) · painter · sculptor · university teacher · designer · draftsperson · printmaker · painter and varnisher · teacher · also Willem de Kooning, Willem De Kooning, Willem DeKooning, William de Kooning, Willem Dekooning, willem de kooning
Born 24 April 1904 · Died 19 March 1997 · Q132305
34 published statements · 0 followers
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2026· 2 entries
Chicago Reader: The frenzied marks of Willem de Kooning
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2024· 3 entries
The New Yorker: Keep Willem de Kooning Weird
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Hyperallergic: Willem de Kooning’s Italy
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Artnet: Italy’s Largest Willem de Kooning Show Will Open in Time for the Venice Biennale
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2022· 1 entry
Artnet: A $100 Million Willem de Kooning Painting Finally Returns to the Arizona Museum It Was Stolen From 37 Years Ago
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2017· 1 entry
Architectural Digest: How Did a Stolen $100M Willem de Kooning Painting End Up In An Elderly Couple's New Mexico Bedroom?
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2002· 1 entry
The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Los Angeles organized Willem de Kooning featuring 65 works on paper created between 1938 and 1955
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1997· 4 entries
Died 1997-03-19.
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“The 'Women' [paintings] had to do with the female painted through all ages, all those idols, and maybe I was stuck to a certain extent; I couldn't go on. It did one thing for me: it eliminated composition, arrangement, relationships, light – all this silly talk about line, colour and form – because that was the thing I wanted to get hold of.”
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“It is disastrous to name ourselves.”
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“Jackson has broken the ice for us.”
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1989· 1 entry
Awarded Praemium Imperiale (1989).
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1986· 1 entry
Won National Medal of Arts (1986).
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1984· 2 entries
Awarded Goslarer Kaiserring (1984).
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Awarded Max Beckmann prize (1984).
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1969· 1 entry
That "those American illustrators were the most inspiring artists to me
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1968· 1 entry
Awarded Talensprijs (1968).
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1964· 1 entry
Won Presidential Medal of Freedom presented by Lyndon B. Johnson (1964).
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1962· 1 entry
And in the following year moved from Broadway to East Hampton, New York, into a house that Elaine's brother Peter Fried had sold to him two years before
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1956· 1 entry
As a result of his affair with Joan Ward
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1951· 1 entry
Won Logan Medal of the Arts (1951).
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1950· 1 entry
And culminating in Woman VI, owes much to Picasso, not least in the aggressive, penetrative breaking apart of the figure, and the spaces around it
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1948· 1 entry
Consisting largely of black-and-white works, although a few pieces have passages of bright color
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1938· 1 entry
Her teacher introduced her to De Kooning at a Manhattan cafeteria when she was 20 and he 34
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1937· 1 entry
When De Kooning had to leave the Federal Art Project because he did not have U
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1934· 1 entry
And in 1935 was employed in the Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration, for which he designed a number of murals including some for the Williamsburg Federal Housing Project in Brooklyn, New York City
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1928· 1 entry
Joined the art colony at Woodstock, New York
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1927· 1 entry
Moved to Manhattan, New York City, where he had a studio on West Forty-fourth Street
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1926· 1 entry
De Kooning traveled to the U
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1922· 1 entry
Studied at Willem de Kooning Academy (1922).
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1916· 1 entry
And became an apprentice in a firm of commercial artists
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1907· 1 entry
And De Kooning lived first with his father and then with his mother
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1904· 1 entry
Born 1904-04-24.
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