One of the United States' most prominent artists, Willem de Kooning, died on March 19th 1997 aged 92. De Kooning was considered as one of the pioneers of contemporary american painting with Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock and Franz Kline.
De Kooning held a special position in the U.S due to his origins. Born in Holland, he was first acquainted with the work of Mondrian and then of James Ensor after a stay in Belgium in 1924.
He emigrated to the U.S in 1926 and his meeting there two years later with Arshile Gorky had a special significance over his career since he made his first approach with abstract painting but the development of his work always went on thereon according an alternative between abstract and figurative forms. Above all, what interested de Kooning was human condition and the questioning of life and death. It was with "Pink Lady" and through his attitude towards the female body that de Kooning went on to possess all his best artistic means in 1944 combining abstraction and reality with a rather violent brushing and an explosive rendering of colours.
With his "positive-negative" paintings around 1948 de Kooning expressed more freedom with forms and came nearer to "Action Painting", a spontaneous expression favoured by Pollock, Kline, Rothko or Newmann.
In fact, de Kooning tried to combine all known all contemporary expressive means used throughout the world.
His first personal exhibition in 1948 coincided with his emergence as one of America's greatest painters.
He then painted his series of women until 1955 and then, until 1963, he concentrated on abstract landscapes and gained international recognition in 1968 with several exhibitions in Europe. In the 1980's many of his works started to be sold at record prices, "July 1956" reaching notably US $ 8 million in an auction sale in 1990.
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