{"data":{"id":"339","type":"artist","attributes":{"id":339,"topgoose_id":2363,"tms_id":339,"display_name":"Willem de Kooning","sort_name":"de Kooning Willem","display_date":"1904–1997","begin_date":"1904","end_date":"1997","biography":"\u003cp\u003eDuring the course of his prolific career of nearly seven decades, Willem de Kooning expanded the language of painting with a mastery that had few equals in the twentieth century. Along with \u003ca href=\"/artists/1039\"\u003eJackson Pollock\u003c/a\u003e, de Kooning is the painter most closely associated with Abstract Expressionism, the seminal American movement of the postwar era. Some of de Kooning’s most celebrated works meld abstraction with figuration and landscape.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"/collection/works/1081\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eWoman and Bicycle\u003c/em\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/a\u003ebelongs to a series of seven paintings of women de Kooning created between 1950 and 1953. With her double mouth, straight-on gaze, and voluptuous figure, rendered in a clashing palette with raw, jagged brushwork, the woman confronts the viewer with an almost visceral force. Although the near-violent energy of his painterly gestures led some to accuse de Kooning of misogyny, for the artist the series was more a reverent, sensual homage to the feminine.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the late 1950s, motivated in part by a larger studio and a move to the more rural setting of Springs, on New York’s Long Island, de Kooning began to paint with greater openness: a “full arm sweep.” He mixed his paint with more liquidity and applied it with a speed and force that is especially apparent in \u003ca href=\"/collection/works/1089\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eDoor to the River\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/a\u003e,\nthe apogee of a group of abstracted\nlandscapes inspired by water, light, and\nmotion (and by his many car trips between\nManhattan and Springs). De Kooning\ndescribed the content of these so-called\nParkway and Pastoral Landscapes as\n“emotions . . . landscapes and highways\nand sensations . . . outside the city—\nwith the feeling of going to the city or\ncoming from it.”\u003c/p\u003e","on_view":false,"artport":false,"biennial":true,"collection":true,"ulan_id":"500000974","wikidata_id":"Q132305","created_at":"2017-08-30T17:20:15.000-04:00","updated_at":"2026-04-27T01:31:45.934-04:00","links":{"artworks":"/api/artists/339/artworks","exhibitions":"/api/artists/339/exhibitions"}}}}