Willem de Kooning
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Willem de Kooning
@wdekooning.bsky.social
270 followers 3 following 1.4K posts
Fan account of Willem de Kooning, a Dutch-American abstract expressionist artist.
1904-1997
Automated #artbot thanks to @andreitr.bsky.social and @botfrens.bsky.social
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Seated Woman https://www.wikiart.org/en/willem-de-kooning/seated-woman
Seated Woman
December 3, 2025 at 7:07 PM
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The Wave https://www.wikiart.org/en/willem-de-kooning/the-wave
The Wave
December 3, 2025 at 1:04 PM
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Excavation https://www.artic.edu/artworks/76244/
Willem de Kooning was a central figure in Abstract Expressionism, an art movement that espoused the painterly actions of the artist as a sign of his or her emotions. De Kooning completed Excavation in June 1950, just in time for it to be exhibited in the twenty-fifth Venice Biennale. His largest painting up to that date, the work exemplifies the Dutch-born innovator’s style, with its expressive brushwork and distinctive organization of space into sliding planes with open contours. According to the artist, the point of departure for the painting was an image of women working in a rice field in Bitter Rice, a 1949 Neorealist film by Italian director Giuseppe de Santis. The mobile structure of hooked calligraphic lines defines anatomical parts—bird and fish shapes, human noses, eyes, teeth, necks, and jaws—that seem to dance across the painted surface, revealing the particular tension between abstraction and figuration that is inherent in de Kooning’s work. The original white pigment has yellowed over the years, diluting somewhat the flashes of red, blue, yellow, and pink that punctuate the composition. Aptly titled, the painting reflects de Kooning’s technically masterful painting process: an intensive building up of the surface and scraping down of its paint layers, often for months, until the desired effect was achieved. Mr. and Mrs. Frank G. Logan Purchase Prize Fund; restricted gifts of Edgar J. Kaufmann, Jr., and Mr. and Mrs. Noah Goldowsky
December 3, 2025 at 10:00 AM
wdekooning.bsky.social
Unused preparatory drawing for In Memory of My Feelings http://www.moma.org/collection/works/108227
Gift of the artist
December 2, 2025 at 6:22 PM
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Untitled #2, from Quatre Lithographies https://www.wikiart.org/en/willem-de-kooning/untitled-2-from-quatre-lithographies
Untitled #2, from Quatre Lithographies
December 2, 2025 at 1:44 PM
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Woman, Sag Harbour https://www.wikiart.org/en/willem-de-kooning/woman-sag-harbour
Woman, Sag Harbour
December 2, 2025 at 9:18 AM
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Women Singing II http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/kooning-women-singing-ii-t01178
Presented by the artist through the American Federation of Arts 1970
December 1, 2025 at 4:08 PM
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Untitled http://www.moma.org/collection/works/95779
The Judith Rothschild Foundation Contemporary Drawings Collection Gift (purchase, and gift, in part, of The Eileen and Michael Cohen Collection)
December 1, 2025 at 12:14 PM
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Clam Diggers https://www.wikiart.org/en/willem-de-kooning/clam-diggers
Clam Diggers
December 1, 2025 at 8:48 AM
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Woman, II http://www.moma.org/collection/works/79763
Gift of Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller
November 30, 2025 at 5:53 PM
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Untitled http://www.moma.org/collection/works/160625
Gift of Jan Christiaan Braun in honor of Rudi Fuchs
November 30, 2025 at 12:38 PM
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Gotham News https://www.wikiart.org/en/willem-de-kooning/gotham-news
Gotham News
November 30, 2025 at 11:33 AM
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Pirate (Untitled II) http://www.moma.org/collection/works/78810
Sidney and Harriet Janis Collection Fund
November 29, 2025 at 5:14 PM
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Untitled XI https://www.wikiart.org/en/willem-de-kooning/untitled-xi
Untitled XI
November 29, 2025 at 2:31 PM
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Untitled https://www.artic.edu/artworks/62290/
Willem de Kooning established his reputation as a key figure in the Abstract Expressionist movement with a series of black-and-white paintings that he created in the late 1940s using household enamels and paper. Characterized by lyrical brushwork and biomorphic abstractions, these works marked the artist’s shift from a figurative drawing style, largely influenced by Arshile Gorky and other European artists, to the evolving gestural tradition of the New York School. Having eliminated color from his palette at that moment, de Kooning became more spontaneous with his application of paint, pushing his compositions to the edge of the paper. The resulting works embodied the physical act of painting, a defining characteristic of what would later become termed “action painting.” Gift from the Mary and Earle Ludgin Collection
November 29, 2025 at 11:44 AM
wdekooning.bsky.social
Seated Woman http://www.moma.org/collection/works/91693
Estate of Stella Waitzkin given in loving memory of Bill Waitzkin and promised gift of an anonymous donor in celebration of The Museum of Modern Art's 75th anniversary
November 28, 2025 at 4:26 PM
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Untitled https://www.wikiart.org/en/willem-de-kooning/untitled-8
November 28, 2025 at 1:23 PM
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Woman https://www.wikiart.org/en/willem-de-kooning/woman-4
Woman
November 28, 2025 at 8:55 AM
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Night https://www.wikiart.org/en/willem-de-kooning/night
Night
November 27, 2025 at 6:38 PM
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Two Women's Torsos https://www.artic.edu/artworks/83889/
A pioneer of Abstract Expressionism, Willem de Kooning experimented with the human form throughout his career, which reached its apex in the early 1950s with his celebrated Woman series. Two Women’s Torsos was created during an intense campaign in which the artist focused on drawings related to his Woman paintings, which were exhibited together with this and other drawings at the Sidney Janis Gallery, New York, in 1953. De Kooning’s drawings are admired for their number and variety as well as for the artist’s expressive technique, exemplified here by his gestural use of pastel in concert with charcoal. This drawing’s velvety texture and almost violently animated surface are characteristic of the approximately one hundred sheets that remain from his intense work on the woman theme in 1952 and 1953. Also typical of de Kooning’s art is the way in which Two Women’s Torsos references aspects of related paintings but stands alone as an independent work. As the artist tried to jettison traditional modes of composition, he used drawing as a primary vehicle for the sequential development of his most important early body of work. John H. Wrenn Memorial Collection
November 27, 2025 at 12:50 PM
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Woman https://www.wikiart.org/en/willem-de-kooning/woman-2
Woman
November 27, 2025 at 10:47 AM
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Landscape at Stanton Street https://www.wikiart.org/en/willem-de-kooning/landscape-at-stanton-street
Landscape at Stanton Street
November 26, 2025 at 7:07 PM
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Untitled http://www.moma.org/collection/works/160637
Gift of Jan Christiaan Braun in honor of Rudi Fuchs
November 26, 2025 at 12:34 PM
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Untitled http://www.moma.org/collection/works/160640
Gift of Jan Christiaan Braun in honor of Rudi Fuchs
November 26, 2025 at 8:19 AM
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Fire Island https://www.wikiart.org/en/willem-de-kooning/fire-island
Fire Island
November 25, 2025 at 5:57 PM