Willem De Kooning

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along with Arshile Gorky, Jackson
Pollock, Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman, began to be recognized as a major
painter in a movement called "Abstract Expressionism". This new school of
thought shifted the center of twentieth century art form Paris to New York.
Willem de Kooning was recognized as the only painter who had one foot in
Europe and one in America. He combined classical European training in
Holland with a love for popular American culture. The restlessness and
energy of American life was a source of great inspiration and passion for
him. Gary Garrells, the chief curator at the San Fransisco Museum of Modern
Art said, " He had the wildness of Pollock but mixed with the impeccable
craftsmanship of the European tradition. He was not interested in style, he
was interested in the process of looking and knowing and getting under the
skin." Willem de Kooning, 93, was the last survivor of his famous peers.
One would not have predicted for him a great old age. Among the ...

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of Women. He painted women on tall door panels. De Kooning's art
was of mutually exclusive contradictions without the resolution of
synthesis, of harmony and balance. By the end of 1970s, he had reached a
point of near total spiritual exhaustion- partly due to heavy drinking and
partly for a tendency to forgetfulness and a gradual detachment from the
world around him.
Much was said of Kooning about his last drawings, " as a doodling of a
helpless old man," but the reality was quite different. De Kooning
succumbed to Alzheimer disease in late 1970s. According to Peter Schjedahl,
in his essay, De Kooning later life was compared to King Lear in
Shakespeare's play. It is said of him , " ...

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