William DeKooning

Want to read the rest of this paper? Join Essayworld today to view this entire essay and over 50,000 other term papers

By the late 1940s, de Kooning 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 Francisco 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 ...

Get instant access to over 50,000 essays. Write better papers. Get better grades. Already a member? Login

In 1963, he began a new series 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 ...

Succeed in your coursework without stepping into a library. Get access to a growing library of notes, book reports, and research papers in 2 minutes or less.

CITE THIS PAGE: