Willem de Kooning

Woman I, painted from 1950 to 1952, mixed aggressive brushwork with a distorted female figure. Critics argued over whether it attacked, mocked, or reinvented the tradition of the painted nude.

Yes, de Kooning is central to Abstract Expressionism even though he returned often to the figure. His work sits between gestural abstraction and recognizable subjects, especially in the Woman series.

De Kooning was born in Rotterdam in the Netherlands in 1904. He later settled in the United States and became one of the key painters of the New York School.

Both were major New York Abstract Expressionists active after World War II. Pollock became known for poured allover paintings, while de Kooning kept pushing scraped, revised brushwork and figure-ground tension.