De+Kooning,+Willem

Willem De Kooning or Bill as his friends called came here from Holland. He was a stowaway on a freighter. He jumped ship in Hoboken, NJ. He was trained in the fine arts and was an expert draftsman and painter. He became a house painter to pay the bills. He did illustration and basically whatever he could do to earn enough money to paint. He is know as the father of Abstract Expressionism. This was the first full blown American art movement. It was made by immigrants except for Pollack and a couple others but even in that, they were immigrants to New York.

Below are his early abstractions before he became full blown. Much of his early work was black and white because it was cheap and these guys were dirt poor. These early abstractions came from various places, the subconscious,observation, fragmenting and reassembling (Cubism) Orestes Untitled Attic Black and White

Excavation

Excavation detail

Untitled Untitled Fire Island