Study for "Glazier" (Self-Portrait)

1937

Leaves the Federal Project: no citizenship

In 1937 De Kooning had to leave the Federal Art Project because he did not have U.S. citizenship, and he began to work full-time as an artist, earning income from commissions and by giving lessons.

1938

Meets Elaine Fried

In 1938 her teacher introduced Elaine Fried, then 20 and an admirer of Willem’s work, to the 34-year-old De Kooning in a Manhattan cafeteria. He began to teach her drawing and painting in his loft on West 21st Street, sternly demanding precise linear definition, and destroyed many of her drawings, which impelled Elaine to strive for both precision and grace.

turn of the 1930s and 1940s

His own manner takes shape

De Kooning’s individual manner took shape at the turn of the 1930s and 1940s under the influence of Picasso and Miró.

1940s

Meets Franz Kline

De Kooning met the younger painter Franz Kline, who was also working in the figurative style of American realism and had been drawn to monochrome. Kline, who died young, became one of De Kooning’s closest artist friends; his influence is evident in De Kooning’s calligraphic black images of this period.