An expansive retrospective tracking the drawing career of Abstract Expressionist master Willem de Kooning opened at the Art Institute of Chicago on June 14, per artnews.com.
The exhibition features approximately 200 artworks spanning the artist’s seven-decade career, including drawings, paintings, bronze sculptures and mixed-media pieces sourced from international museums and private collections.
The exhibition explores de Kooning’s lifelong dedication to draftsmanship, a practice he maintained alongside the innovative painting style that secured his midcentury prominence in the New York art world. The gathered works range from early, rarely seen sketches to late-career abstract compositions.
Among the historical highlights is the artist’s earliest known work, Dish With Jugs (ca. 1919-21), on loan from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Curator Kevin Salatino noted that de Kooning spent roughly 600 hours completing the photorealistic black-and-white piece as a teenager in Rotterdam, whilst studying at night and working as a commercial designer.
The retrospective also showcases sketches created just before the Dutch-born artist immigrated to the United States in 1926. These pieces capture vivid European street scenes, including depictions of public drunkenness and a bank security guard pursuing a suspect.
Subsequent decades of de Kooning’s career are represented by technically precise portraits from the 1940s, including Woman’s Head (1942) and a portrait of his wife, Elaine de Kooning. The selection also features 24 charcoal female nudes from 1966, produced with his eyes closed for a limited-edition publication.
Following its run in Chicago, a version of the exhibition will travel to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam this autumn.
Though celebrated globally for defining the post-war Abstract Expressionism movement through his aggressive, gestural paintings, de Kooning’s foundational training in Europe was rooted in rigorous academic draftsmanship. This exhibition highlights how drawing remained a vital, experimental laboratory for his radical formal innovations.
•Featured image: Willem de Kooning in his studio at 85 Fourth Avenue in New York in 1946/Harry Bowden
