The Rijksmuseum presents 'Willem de Kooning at work', a landmark exhibition that places the artist’s creative process at its core. Featuring around 120 works, it offers a comprehensive overview of his drawings, alongside selected paintings and sculptures.
A century after leaving his hometown of Rotterdam as a stowaway bound for the United States, de Kooning returns to the Netherlands in this ambitious collaboration between the Rijksmuseum and the Art Institute of Chicago, in close consultation with The Willem de Kooning Foundation.
Tracing de Kooning’s artistic evolution, the exhibition follows his journey from the Netherlands to New York where his work showed a startling lack of adherence to stylistic norms as he shifted between figuration and abstraction while creating bold works that defined Abstract Expressionism. It continued with decades of vital energy in his Long Island studio that led this colorist through to the perfect integration of drawing and painting. Through his drawings, audiences gain unprecedented insight into an artist constantly searching for renewal - a modern master whose restless line forever reshaped the language of art.
The exhibition Willem de Kooning at work is made possible in part by The Willem de Kooning Foundation, Stichting Ammodo, Art Mentor Foundation Lucerne, Rijksmuseum International Circle and Rijksmuseum Friends.