"I think Rothko really made a break with his past - I've made this point before - and Franz Kline also made a break with his past. They just changed completely in a way that Gorky and Willem de Kooning never did. Their work was always a continuity and one grew out of the other. Let's say, paintings that de Kooning was doing in the '70's had very little to do with the things that he was doing in the '40's, ostensibly, but it was a smooth continuous flow. It was not like saying, "I repudiate that.""
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Elaine de Kooning (1981), in 'Oral history interview with Elaine de Kooning', 1981 Aug. 27, conducted by Phyllis Tuchman; Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Willem_de_Kooning
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Willem de Kooning
Willem de Kooning (24 April 1904 – 19 March 1997) was an abstract expressionist painter, born in Rotterdam, Netherlands, who settled in the United States. Along with Jackson Pollock, and others, he was an exponent of Abstract expressionism. Initially, he was strongly influenced by Picasso, Cubism, and Chaim Soutine. He was married with Elaine de Kooning and closely befriended with Arshile Gorky; later with Franz Kline.
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