08/21/2026
Willem de Kooning and his peers drove artistic innovation in paint through their experiments with materials and form. Their canvases ruptured the art historical continuum with their fluid, quick brushstrokes. In the first half of the 20th century, many looked to Paris and to Pablo Picasso for innovation or to Mexico City and Diego Rivera for grand gestures, but de Kooning and his contemporaries changed things. Sometimes called action painting, their approach to painting emphasized movement of paint across their compositions. De Kooning’s works often rest on the precipice of abstraction and representation. Here, a pink fleshy palette dominates the composition. The artist depicted women, and later women within a landscape. De Kooning’s formative years shaped his relationship to paint. When he first arrived in the U.S. he worked as a house painter and later in the Mural Division of the Works Progress Administration in New York.
🖼️ Willem de Kooning, b.1904, Rotterdam, Netherlands–d.1997, East Hampton, New York
Untitled VII
Oil on canvas, 1979
Made possible by Kenneth C. Griffin Collection
© 2026 The Willem de Kooning Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Installation image by Oriol Tarridas
