Junge Kunst 13: Willem de Kooning

In 1926, the 22-year-old Dutchman Willem de Kooning (1904-1997) traveled to the USA without papers and hidden in the engine room of a British freighter. The young art student initially made a living as a house painter, sign painter and facade painter before he was finally able to devote himself fully to painting after eight years.

In America, he made contact with the art scene and became friends with artists such as Arshile Gorky, Franz Kline, Clifford Still, Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko. Today, De Kooning is one of the most important painters of abstract expressionism and, together with Jackson Pollock, is considered a pioneer of action painting. De Kooning's life, which was accompanied by self-doubt, success, new beginnings, excesses and scandalous paintings, as well as the development of his artistic work, are vividly illuminated in this volume. In addition, the author Corinna Thierolf opens up exciting perspectives on De Kooning's work by making completely new, astonishing connections to works by fellow artists such as Franz Marc, Piet Mondrian and Wassily Kandinsky.