![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/5f5b6441f4a3fae6d3b372a9d174ae288ba58262-3000x2632.jpg\"\/)
<\/p>\n\u201cI draw in paint,\u201d Willem de Kooning (1904-97) once said, \u201cand usually I don\u2019t feel so much difference between drawing and painting.\u201d A new exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago, titled Willem de Kooning Drawing, will take inspiration from this dissolving of boundaries and bring together not only the artist\u2019s drawings but also paintings, prints and even sculptures.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe exhibition uses drawing as a concept rather than a theme,\u201d says the curator Kevin Salatino. \u201cIt\u2019s drawing as both a fact and an act, a noun and a verb\u2014so there\u2019s no colon in the title. Drawing is so fundamental to every discipline, including sculpture,\u201d he says. Even the critic Clement Greenberg, famously a proponent of pure abstraction, and of de Kooning\u2019s rival Jackson Pollock, praised the Dutch American artist for his exceptional drawing skills.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
An untitled work from 1985 \u00a9 2026 The Willem de Kooning Foundation\/Artists Rights Society, New York<\/p>\n
Salatino says he often calls de Kooning \u201cthe last Old Master\u201d, continuing in the tradition of artists like Rembrandt, Johannes Vermeer and Peter Paul Rubens. Salatino likes to point to both de Kooning\u2019s little-known depictions of the crucifixion\u2014\u201cHe had an interest in religious iconography, though he was not religious himself\u201d\u2014as well as his first surviving drawing, Dish with Jugs (around 1919-21). \u201cIt\u2019s a charcoal still-life made over many hours and many months while de Kooning was a student at the Rotterdam Academy,\u201d Salatino says. (The school was renamed in de Kooning\u2019s honour in 1998.) \u201cThe drawing is so extraordinary that it almost looks like a photograph. It\u2019s now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art\u2014and the first work you see in the Chicago show,\u201d Salatino adds.<\/p>\n
The exhibition will include more than 200 works spanning seven decades, many on loan from collections around the world. \u201cIt\u2019s remarkable how many of de Kooning\u2019s works are still in private hands,\u201d Salatino says; around half of the exhibition\u2019s loans came from private collections and foundations. This includes the show\u2019s other bookend, an untitled simple abstraction in blue from 1985. When viewing this piece alongside de Kooning\u2019s student still-life, Salatino sees \u201cremarkable similarities in terms of form and a continuity of incredible variety emphasised. The beginning and end of his career match up in such interesting ways. You can trace the same motifs and images through the ages.\u201d<\/p>\n
Famous pieces, rare pieces<\/p>\n
Between the two bookends will be a few of the artist\u2019s most famous works\u2014like the Art Institute\u2019s own Excavation (1950) and Woman I (1950-52) from the Museum of Modern Art in New York\u2014accompanied by rare pieces never before shown in public. \u201cPeople will see a lot of drawings they\u2019ve never seen before,\u201d Salatino says, including an early series of caricatures, the aforementioned crucifixions, and drawings de Kooning created with his eyes closed.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/9a1ac05dd6f7bc3fcc93a3fd9bd1233f293f5c3e-2305x3000.jpg\"\/)
<\/p>\n
Untitled (man and woman) (around 1947-48) Photo: courtesy of TAJAN; \u00a9 2026 The Willem de Kooning Foundation\/Artists Rights Society, New York<\/p>\n
Almost six years in the making, Willem de Kooning Drawing is the Art Institute\u2019s first major exhibition of the artist\u2019s work since 1969. This year marks the 100th anniversary of de Kooning\u2019s arrival in the US, his adopted home, after the 22-year-old artist jumped on a freight ship and stowed away across the Atlantic. \u201cDe Kooning is an artist for our time,\u201d Salatino says. \u201cI think it has something to do with his incredible openness. The fluidity about him speaks to the present. He made as many images of men as of women, and often gender was nonspecific. He was also an illegal immigrant here for 36 years!\u201d De Kooning finally became a US citizen in 1962.<\/p>\n
After Chicago, many of the works in the exhibition will travel to Amsterdam\u2019s Rijksmuseum for the show Willem de Kooning at Work (9 October-17 January 2027). Salatino adds: \u201cDe Kooning would\u2019ve been thrilled to be included in the same museum as the Old Masters.\u201d<\/p>\n