First author of an American art survey to write sympathetically about Abstract Expressionism; art dealer. Kootz earned a Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of Virginia in 1921. He practiced briefly before moving to New York city to work as an account executive in advertising handling motion pictures clients. During that time he published Modern American Painters in 1930, an early text on contemporary American artists. Kootz switch careers in 1934 again, now a silk converter, where he commissioned Stuart Davis and Arthur Dove to design scarves.