A portrait of the artist Willem de Kooning L. Kent Wolgamott / Lincoln Journal Star When Willem de Kooning snuck into the engine room of the Dutch freighter the SS Shelley in 1926 and stowed away for a voyage to America, he was much like thousands of other immigrants — doing what he had to in order to reach the land of his dreams, arriving penniless and unable to speak the language of his new home. |