Willem de Kooning is regarded as one of the 20th century’s most important painters. In the 1930s and 40s he was a key figure in the abstract expressionist art movement in America, together with Arshile Gorky and Jackson Pollock.  Born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, De Kooning arrived in New York as a stowaway in 1926. He struggled for years as a fine artist, supporting himself with his work as an illustrator and commercial artist. His first one-man show was only in 1948, just before his 44th birthday. 10 black-and-white paintings he had finished the year before, were exhibited -- and nothing sold.  But acclaim by art critics, including Clement Greenberg, soon his works had Broken Auction Records.  At the turn of the 21st Century his paintings reached records at Auction for prices as high as $21,000,000.