Willem de Kooning returns to the Netherlands

The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam opens "Willem de Kooning at work" on October 9, 2026. With more than 120 works, it is the largest exhibition of the Dutch-American painter in Europe since 1984. It runs until January 17, 2027.

The show is built around drawing, the core of de Kooning's practice, and places his drawings next to selected paintings and sculptures. Among the loans are "Excavation" from 1950, lent by the Art Institute of Chicago, and "Clam Diggers" from 1963, from a private collection.

Two of his best-known paintings, "Woman I" and "Woman and Bicycle", hang in the museum's Gallery of Honour, close to Rembrandt and the Dutch masters of the seventeenth century.

The exhibition marks one hundred years since de Kooning left his hometown of Rotterdam as a stowaway bound for the United States. It was organized by the Rijksmuseum together with the Art Institute of Chicago and The Willem de Kooning Foundation in New York.

Source: Rijksmuseum