Willem de Kooning was a Dutch-born American painter, born in Rotterdam on April 24, 1904 and dead in East Hampton, New York, on March 19, 1997. He was a leading figure of Abstract Expressionism, best known for his Woman paintings of the 1950s, and one of his canvases, Interchange, sold in 2015 for about 300 million dollars, then the highest price ever paid for a painting.
He reached America in 1926 as a stowaway, without papers or a word of English. His first solo show came only in 1948, when he was 44.
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He did not cross the ocean to become a famous abstract painter. At twelve he was already working for a commercial art firm in Rotterdam, and he spent his teens in evening classes at the city's art academy. What he wanted in America was a job as an illustrator for pulp magazines. Looking back in 1969, he said that those American illustrators were the most inspiring artists to him.
That is the man who, in 1950, began a painting of a woman and kept at it for two years, starting over again and again. How a trained hand ended up painting that face is the story.
What You'll Discover
Why he hid aboard a freighter.
Who he married in 1943.
What he painted for two years.
What he let a friend erase.
What one canvas sold for.
How his career ended.