And itвЂ™s where, in 1930, he met his hugely influential mentor, and first Manhattan room-mate, the Armenian born artist Arshile Gorky. Eventually settling into the Greenwich Village neighbourhood in the late 1920s, de Kooning became immersed in an intoxicating mix of buzzing jazz bars, illicit drinking dens and ramshackle art studios, as he mixed with the musicians, painters and impoverished artists that filled the lively neighbourhood. Well he tried to: cue several poorly executed attempts to stowaway on various ships first, before he finally arrived in New York City in 1928, with barely a word of English to his name. NEW YORK, NEW YORK: Lured by the land of opportunity, like countless European artists before him, Willem left for America. But despite his mastery of realism he, like Picasso before him, would eventually turn his back on it - revealing something far more revolutionary in the process. One glance at the painstakingly accurate вЂstill lifeвЂ™ above, drawn at 16, and it could pass as a vintage black and white photo. вЂStill Life With Bowl, Pitcher and JugвЂ™, 1921, Willem de Kooning So itвЂ™s not surprising that at 12 he jumped at the chance of an apprenticeship to a local printmakers - who were impressed enough with his talent to enrol him into RotterdamвЂ™s fine art school for four years of evening classes to the learn the classics (and spend more time away from mother). A fierce brawling bar-owner, she treated her kids like the rowdy sailors that frequented her raucous bar, terrorising and often physically beating Willem.

Perhaps thatвЂ™s why we know what a Pollock painting вЂlooksвЂ™ like, but not a de Kooning: he was way too restless for continuity.Д®ARLY YEARS: Born in Holland, in 1904, the foundations for those ferocious paintings of women mentioned earlier may have had their roots in his youth, thanks to an uneasy relationship with his terrifying mother, Cornelia. ItвЂ™s something that would rankle with the more rigid Pollock until his untimely death, once even accusing him of being a sell out. Which would have been fine if having formed a new movement, Willem then stuck to its rules вЂ“ which he didnвЂ™t. But what bound the Abstract Expressionist movement together was not what they did, but how they did it: applying вЂabstractвЂ™ shapes and forms onto a canvas to вЂexpressвЂ™ their emotions - or even inner psyches - through their thick daubes or splodges of paint, vigorously applied. WHAT IS ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM?: If Cubists break their subjects down into geometric fragments and Surrealists conjure up dreamlike scenes, what did the Abstract Expressionists do? Well arguably they are the most mind-bending of the lot because finding the threads that link the likes of paint-hurler Jackson Pollock, rectangle high priest Mark Rothko and ruptured figurative-and-landscape dauber Willem de Kooning, is at first glance a total head scratch. And then thereвЂ™s the small matter of the CIA вЂ“ and how on earth it ended up using his work as a secret weapon - but weвЂ™ll get to the clandestine spy stuff later. And it not only made Willem a celebrity but, some argue, eventually shifted the epicentre of the art world itself, from Paris over to The Big Apple (with a little help from fellow genius New Yorkers Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko). Add to this turbulent canvas a tumultuous personal life and a wilful disregard for convention, and a revolution in the New York art scene emerges. INTRODUCING WILLEM DE KOONING: How does a penniless young Dutch stowaway transform into AmericaвЂ™s first art superstar? Forging an incendiary new art movement called Abstract Impressionism helps, as does courting notoriety by painting some of the most frightening portraits of women in the history of art.

In our latest instalment of 'Paintings on the Wall', journalist Adam Jacques introduces us to the works of Paul's friend Willem de Kooning. In the 1940s and 50s a Rotterdam born painter helped define the first truly homegrown American art movement and put New York at the centre of modern art.

вЂPink AngelsвЂ™, circa 1945, Willem de Kooning

Willem de kooning painter