Willem de Kooning's Woman V (1952-53), National Gallery of Australia.
Willem de Kooning (April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was an abstract expressionist painter, born in Rotterdam, Netherlands.
The Rotterdam Academy of Fine Art accepted de Kooning as a student in 1916. In 1926 he stowed away on a British freighter, the SS Shelly, to Newport, Virginia. He then went by ship to Boston, and took a train from Boston to Rhode Island. From there, he took another ship to New Jersey.
