Much of the painting done in the United States and Europe during the past 30 years was in reaction to the work of one man, the Dutch-American artist Willem de Kooning.
He, perhaps more than anyone else, defined the gestural abstract painting that made New York the center of the art world in the 1950s. And as the practitioner of this sensual, intensely physical kind of art, he became the very model for an American painter, forcing artists of later generations to somehow come to terms with him.Mr. de Kooning, who for several years had suffered from Alz-hei-mer's disease, died Wednesday in his studio on Long Island, N.Y. He was 92.
"He was among the last of a generation of American painters who struggled with European modernism and formed his art in relation to it," said Jeremy Strick, curator of 20th Century painting and sculpture at the Art Institute of Chicago, which owns several of Mr. de Kooning's canvases and works on paper.
"American - and, for that matter, European - painters since de Kooning formed their art in relation to him," Strick said.
The most extreme example of the strength of Mr. de Kooning's influence came from Robert Rauschenberg, a younger artist who felt he had to get past Abstract Expressionism in order to make personal progress. The most radical act Rauschenberg could commit to counter the influence was, however, to erase one of Mr. de Kooning's drawings.
"He was a figure who represented the enthusiasm, dynamism and vibrancy of American art after World War II," said Kevin Consey, director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, which owns both a painting and a sculpture by Mr. de Kooning.
"He was also a great international example of how creative work can be a lifelong work," Consey said.
Mr. de Kooning was born in Rotterdam on April 24, 1904. His father was a wine and beer distributor and his mother a barmaid.
He worked for a commercial art and decorating firm at age 12, concurrently studying in evening courses at Rotterdam's leading art school. His earliest known piece, a still-life drawing, shows a solid academic training reflecting the Old Masters.
In 1926 Mr. de Kooning came to the United States as a stowaway, settling in Hoboken, N.J., which had a sizable Dutch community where he could learn English.
Mr. de Kooning moved to New York City in 1927. He intended to become an illustrator. Although he began to meet aspiring artists such as Arshile Gorky and Stuart Davis, Mr. de Kooning continued to earn his keep by sign painting and carpentry.
His first easel paintings were in 1935, the same year he found employment with the Works Progress Administration, which set him to creating murals.
More than a decade passed before Mr. de Kooning earned a solo exhibition. However, during this period he began painting in what would become his characteristic method, in series, shifting between figures and abstractions. A figure study from 1941 was of artist and critic Elaine Fried, whom Mr. de Kooning married two years later.
Another decisive event occurred in 1942: his first exhibition with Jackson Pollock, the artist whom Mr. de Kooning credited with "breaking the ice" for the kind of abstract painting that would bring both of them fame.
The Art Institute of Chicago played a key role in confirming the reputation being made in the East. In 1950, the museum awarded Mr. de Kooning the Frank G. Logan Purchase Prize for "Excavation," at 80-by-100 inches his largest painting to date.
Mr. de Kooning upset the apple cart three years later by reverting to paintings of the human figure, all female. The dynamism with which he set down his slashes of paint conveyed a certain ruthlessness, which scholars interpreted as Mr. de Kooning's delayed reaction to having been separated from his beloved father by his mother.
Paintings in the "Women" series - particularly "Woman I," which was purchased by the Museum of Modern Art - became some of the most famous images in American art of the 1950s.
The next decade was arguably the period of Mr. de Kooning's greatest fame. Critic Harold Rosenberg promoted the work as "Action Painting," a term that suggested art was an existential battle comparable to that of a bullfighter in an arena. Others wrote about a "New York School" of Mr. de Kooning's followers. His pre-eminence was unchallenged.
Countless museums in the world own examples of his works; such is his reputation today that any museum presuming to represent 20th century art cannot do without them.