Esteban Vicente, abstract expressionism artist

[R. Kane]

From:
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20010111/wl/obit_vicente_1.html

Thursday January 11 8:59 AM ET

Spanish Artist Vicente Dies at 97

MADRID, Spain (AP) - Spanish painter Esteban Vicente, a pioneer
of the New York-based abstract expressionism school that made
Jackson Pollack and Mark Rothko famous, has died, his namesake
museum said Thursday. He was 97.

Vicente, who had lived in the United States for the past 50
years, died Wednesday at his home in Bridge Hampton, N.Y., said
Jose Parreno, assistant director of the Esteban Vicente
contemporary museum in Segovia.

The cause of death was not immediately known, although Parreno
said that he was not suffering any illness. ``He was painting until
the very last moment,'' he said.

Born Jan. 20, 1903 in the central Spanish town of Turegano,
Vicente lived in Paris as a young man, where he knew Pablo Picasso
and Max Ernst. In the 1950s, he set up a studio in New York with
Willem de Kooning and was an active member of ``The Club,'' a forum
instrumental in the formation of abstract expressionism, also
called the New York school or action painting.

Vicente lived with his American wife in the United States.

His remains were to be cremated and placed in his museum in
small town of Segovia, about 60 miles north of Madrid.