de Kooning, Willem, 1904-97, American painter, b. Netherlands; studied Rotterdam Academy of Fine Arts and Techniques. De Kooning immigrated to the United States, arriving as a stowaway in 1926 and settling in New York City, where he worked on the Federal Arts Project (1935). He began experiments with abstraction as early as 1928, but continued to produce realistic paintings throughout the 1930s. Influenced by Arshile Gorky, de Kooning forged a powerful abstract style and in the 1940s became a leader of abstract expressionism. In his monumental series of the early 1950s entitled Woman, he reintroduced a representational element. Woman I (1951-52; Mus. of Modern Art, New York City), with its startling ferocity, brought him considerable notice and some notoriety. He later reverted chiefly to nonfigurative work. During the 1960s he also produced more paintings of women as well as many works with landscape elements, and in the 1970s he created a dazzling group of painterly abstractions.

Slashed with color amd formed with eloquent brushstrokes, de Kooning's often huge canvases are improvisationally executed and charged with great energy; many are widely considered masterpieces of the abstract expressionist movement. His late work (1980-1990) has been the subject of some controversy. Although increasingly affected by Alzheimer's disease during this decade, he produced an impressive body of work, hundreds of large canvases in elegantly composed configurations, their elements pared down, their limited colors forming sinuously intertwining ribbons. In some sense, de Kooning's art had outlived his conscious mind as he continued to create beautifully simplified works of art. He finally stopped painting in mid-1990. He was married to the painter Elaine Fried de Kooning (1920-1989).

(born April 24, 1904, Rotterdam, Neth.—died March 19, 1997, East Hampton, N.Y., U.S.) Dutch-born U.S. painter. He studied art in Rotterdam and entered the U.S. as a stowaway in 1926. Settling in Hoboken, N.J., he supported himself as a house painter before moving to New York City, where he came under the influence of Arshile Gorky. He supported himself by working for the WPA Federal Art Project. In the 1930s and '40s his work was both figurative and abstract; the two tendencies eventually fused in images that combined biomorphic and geometric shapes. In the 1940s he became one of the leading exponents of Abstract Expressionism and particularly of action painting. Among his best-known works is a series of deliberately vulgar images of women done with roughly applied pigment and raw colours (e.g., Woman I, 1950–52; Woman and Bicycle, 1953). In 1963 he moved to East Hampton; in his later years he produced clay sculpture that was cast into bronze.

Learn more about de Kooning, Willem with a free trial on Britannica.com.