2. Biography Willem de Kooning was born in Rotterdam on 24 April 1904. In 1916 de Kooning began to train as a commercial artist; at the same time he attended evening courses at the Rotterdam Academy until 1924. Afterwards he studied at the Académieroyale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels and the van Schelling School of Design in Antwerp,Belgium. In 1926 the young artist emigrated to the US, where he worked illegally in New York as a commercial artist, window dresser, sign painter and carpenter. He shared a studio with Gorky and his early pictures were influenced by Gorky's Surrealist style and by Picasso's painting. However, de Kooning was also inspired by Jackson Pollock and Franz Kline. Contact with Pollock and Kline inspired him to do his first black-and-white abstract works in 1946.
3. From 1950 he developed his first "Women" pictures, which are notable for such strong of handling that they at first caused a scandal. He Naturalized as an American citizen in 1962, de Kooning left New York the following year to settle at Springs on Long Island. In 1964 he received one of the greatest distinctions awarded in America, the "Presidential Medal of Freedom". In 1970 he turned to sculpturing in bronze.
4. At the latest from his participation in the 1954 Venice Biennale, where he was represented with one of his most important works, "Excavation", Willem de Kooning has been regarded as a leading exponent of Abstract Expressionism. These years of his career were filled with numerous shows of his work and retrospectives. Willem de Kooning died in Springs, USA on 19 March 1997.
5. We chose Kooning because of his unique styles and his painting talent. His arts are very complicate and they’re expressing the meaning inside the picture. Most of his arts are abstract and very beautiful. The reasons that made us enjoy his work because of his abstract paintings are Very interesting and they got a style on their own. Some of his arts including small Details on the different point in the picture, so it finally attracted us to looking into it.
