Willem de Kooning is taking over the walls of the Art Institute of Chicago this summer, and not with the usual splashy canvases. The museum is rolling out a massive show devoted to his drawings, more than 200 works on paper that track seven decades of restlessness and reinvention. The exhibition opens June 14 and runs through September 20, marking the Art Institute’s first solo de Kooning presentation in Chicago since 1969 and what is being billed as the largest-ever survey centered on his drawing practice.
According to the Art Institute of Chicago, Willem de Kooning Drawing is “the first exhibition to explore the full scope” of the artist’s work on paper, pairing those sheets with select paintings, prints and sculptures to show how ideas bounced across media. The museum also underscores that this is de Kooning’s first solo outing there since 1969. Time Out has described the show as the largest exhibition yet devoted specifically to his drawings.
The Art Institute’s team worked closely with the Willem de Kooning Foundation on the project. The foundation notes that the presentation includes more than 200 drawings, many of which are rarely seen outside storage, and that it reflects several years of research into how the artist actually worked. In a statement to the Willem de Kooning Foundation, Kevin Salatino, the Art Institute’s chair and curator of prints and drawings, stressed that de Kooning “drew incessantly” and that the show is meant to put drawing at the center of his practice rather than treat it as a warm-up act for painting.
What’s On View
The galleries lead visitors from de Kooning’s rigorous early academic studies to the loose, improvisational lines of his later years, with charcoal, pastel, graphite and hybrid pieces that blur the line between drawing and painting. As Artnet reports, the installation treats drawings as the main event. Salatino told the outlet that “drawing was arguably his greatest gift,” so the show leans into that idea.
Visitors can expect to see quick preparatory studies, stand-alone sheets that hold their own as finished works, and drawings tied to touchstone projects such as the Woman series. The layout is designed to show how de Kooning’s ideas migrated between paper, canvas and sculpture, giving a behind-the-scenes feel to an artist who rarely stopped revising.
Catalog And Tour
The exhibition comes with a fully illustrated catalogue edited by Salatino and his colleagues. Yale University Press lists the volume, which is tied directly to the Art Institute presentation.
Chicago is just the first stop. After the run on Michigan Avenue, the installation will head to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam in October as Willem de Kooning at work, where it will remain on view into January, according to the Rijksmuseum.
The Art Institute recommends planning a timed visit, and ticketing details, hours and member previews are available on the museum’s website. The show is housed at the museum’s building at 111 S. Michigan Ave in Grant Park. Because these are works on paper, expect carefully controlled light levels and the possibility that some sheets may be rotated during the run to protect more fragile pieces. In other words, if you are the type who likes to go back twice, you might not see the exact same lineup the second time around.
