WdKA ...

Willem de Kooning Academy is named after Willem de Kooning born in Rotterdam on April 24, 1904. Already at age 12, De Kooning began to training as a decorative painter and he attended evening classes at the Rotterdam Academy of Fine Arts and Applied Sciences.

In 1924 he continued his studies in Belgium, where he studied at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts and the Van Schelling design school in Antwerp.

After completing his education he traveled in 1926 as a stowaway on a ship to the United States. He went to work in New Jersey as a professional painter, he applied himself in his evening hours to painting art.

Influenced by art expert John D. Graham and artist Arshile Gorky the art of De Kooning became more abstract and he painted with ever wilder strips. From 1935 he stopped working and he devoted his life to art.

His art was labeled by some as vulgar and not everyone could appreciate his rough painting. But the unique style of De Kooning made him also known and the merging of the figurative painting and abstract art was his great strength.

Willem de Kooning died in Springs, in the United States, on March 19, 1997.

WdKA is a leading international academy for Bachelor and Master programs in media, art, design, leisure and education.

Willem de Kooning Academy contributes to a small-scale and high-quality manufacturing in the fields of art, fashion, product and media in Rotterdam and to the development of Rotterdam as a breeding ground for (youth) visual culture and artistic applied research.

(Sources: various on Internet)