Rijksmuseum
9 October 2026 through 17 January 2027
Featuring more than 120 works, Willem de Kooning at work is a comprehensive survey of the artist’s drawn works complemented by some of his most celebrated paintings and sculptures
One hundred years after Willem de Kooning left Rotterdam for a new life in New York, Rijksmuseum brings de Kooning back to the Netherlands with the major exhibition Willem de Kooning at Work. De Kooning became one of the most influential artists of the 20th century. Featuring more than 120 works, Rijksmuseum’s landmark exhibition is a comprehensive overview of his drawn works, complemented by a selection of de Kooning’s most celebrated paintings and sculptures. The drawings trace the development of a modern master who changed art forever, offering unprecedented insight into the practice of an artist in constant search of renewal. Alongside the exhibition, two of de Kooning’s most iconic paintings – Woman I and Woman and Bicycle – will be displayed concurrently in the Rijksmuseum’s Gallery of Honour, placing de Kooning among the great masters of Dutch painting.
Willem de Kooning at work will be on view from 9 October 2026 through 17 January 2027 and is developed in collaboration with the Art Institute of Chicago and The Willem de Kooning Foundation in New York.
Willem de Kooning at work
Willem de Kooning at work is the first exhibition to place the full scope of the artist’s drawn oeuvre at its centre, bringing together more than 120 iconic works. They include Reclining Nude (Juliet Browner) (ca. 1938), Itinerant Chapel (1951) and Woman in a Rowboat (ca. 1964-65), all from private collections, Abstraction (1949-1950, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza), Pink Angels (ca. 1945, Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation) and Woman (1983, Museum Ludwig). The exhibition follows Willem de Kooning’s artistic development over a period of more than 65 years, with drawing as its central thread. For de Kooning, drawing was not a preparatory step – it was the very foundation of his practice. By presenting rarely exhibited drawings alongside key works from international collections, such as Excavation (1950, Art Institute of Chicago) and Clam Diggers (1963, private collection), the exhibition reveals how themes such as the human figure and landscape recur throughout his work. Together, these works reveal an artist driven by a continual search for new possibilities and ongoing self-reinvention. The creative process itself became the core of his work. We see de Kooning sketching, experimenting, revising, repeating and, at times, surprising even himself – from apparently rapid pencil and charcoal drawings to works made with his eyes closed, and works where the boundary between drawing and painting has been dissolved completely.
About the artist
Born and raised in Rotterdam, Willem de Kooning (1904–1997) developed a passion for drawing and painting at an early age. De Kooning took drawing courses as a night student at the city’s Academy of Visual Arts and Technical Sciences and apprenticed at the decorative arts studio of Jan and Jaap Gidding in Rotterdam. In 1926, he stowed away aboard a cargo ship bound for America. He settled in New York, where he worked during his first years as a house painter, illustrator and shop-window designer. The art world beckoned, however, and de Kooning made the transition to becoming an independent artist. Following his breakthrough in the late 1940s, he became a key figure in the New York School, alongside contemporaries such as Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, Barnett Newman and Mark Rothko. In the decades that followed, de Kooning grew into one of the most influential modern artists. Although his work is often associated with Abstract Expressionism, he resisted every attempt to place him within a particular category.
Accompanying the exhibition
A catalogue and a book will be published to accompany the exhibition. The catalogue, edited by The Art Institute of Chicago, presents new research and offers an in-depth exploration of Willem de Kooning’s drawings.
The book, published by the Rijksmuseum, is published especially for readers discovering de Kooning for the first time, or for those wishing to reacquaint themselves with the artist.
Willem de Kooning
> The Rotterdam roots of the American Abstract Expressionis
> A portrait of Willem de Kooning's formative years at the Rottedam academy and of the city he left behind
> Exhibition, Rijksmuseum, Willem de Kooning at work, 9 October 2026 – 17 January 2027
A hundred years ago, 22-year-old Willem de Kooning left the quays of his hometown, Rotterdam. Hidden away on board of the cargo ship SS Shelley, De Kooning travelled to New York. He left a city in its heyday: in the Roaring Twenties, Rotterdam was transforming into a vibrant, world-class cultural port city. This illustrated publication showcases this vibrant Rotterdam, the city where De Kooning grew up and was shaped by his time at the academy and at the design firm Giddings & Zonen. At the same time, the book sketches a vivid picture of 1920s New York, where he, like many others, arrived as a migrant and began a new life. It was here that Willem de Kooning emerged as one of the greatest and most influential artists of the twentieth century. With contributions by Anne Kremers, Wim Pijbes and Ludo van Halem.
Woman (Woman Seated I), 1952. Private collection, courtesy of Hauser & Wirth Collection Services, Zurich. © 2026 T...
Woman, 1983. Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Leihgabe as of 1986. © 2026 The Willem de Kooning Foundation, Pictoright, Ams...
Willem de Kooning Untitled (Three Women), c. 1948 Matte opaque paint (possibly oil) with fine particulate filler, enamel, carbon transfer drawing, charcoal, and graphite pencil on card stock, mounted on secondary support, 51,9 x 66,8 cm Collection of the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York, gift of Mrs. Richard Deutsch (Katherine W. Sanford, class of 1940), 1953.2.5 © 2026 The Willem de Kooning Foundation, Pictoright, Amsterdam.
Willem de Kooning Excavation, 1950 Oil, enamel, and charcoal on canvas, 205,7 x 254,6 cm The Art Institute of Chicago, Mr. and Mrs. Frank G. Logan Purchase Prize Fund; purchased with funds provided by Edgar J. Kaufmann, Jr., and Mr. and Mrs. Noah Goldowsky, 1952.1 © 2026 The Willem de Kooning Foundation, Pictoright, Amsterdam
Willem de Kooning Untitled, c. 1937 Matte opaque paint, carbon drawing pencil, and graphite pencil on wove paper, 22,4 x 39,7 cm Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, purchase, with funds from Frances and Sydney Lewis, 77.34 © 2026 The Willem de Kooning Foundation, Pictoright, Amsterdam
Willem de Kooning Untitled [clamdigger], c. 1970 Charcoal with traces of oil on wove paper, 27,9 x 21,6 cm Collection of KAWS © 2026 The Willem de Kooning Foundation, Pictoright, Amsterdam
