Willem de Kooning

Willem de Kooning was born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, on 24 April 1904 and died in East Hampton, New York, on 19 March 1997. In 1926 he made a clandestine crossing to the United States, a journey that would prove decisive: settling eventually in New York, he became one of the defining figures of the New York School and a central presence in postwar American art. His work drew sustained institutional attention across decades, culminating in a solo exhibition at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris in 1984 — a landmark presentation that affirmed his standing within the international canon.

De Kooning's recognition extended beyond the gallery world. In 1951 The Art Institute of Chicago awarded him the Logan Medal and Purchase Prize in connection with his painting Excavation, and in 1964 the Government of the United States presented him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. His estate is administered by The Willem de Kooning Foundation, based in New York, which controls the artist's rights and legacy and has collaborated closely with major institutions on posthumous scholarship and exhibition. Pace Gallery, New York, has served as the primary estate representative since a documented transfer in 2010, and the artist's work has been handled by a wide range of galleries including Gagosian in New York, Lévy Gorvy Dayan, Galerie Lelong & Co. in Paris, Galerie Karsten Greve in Paris, Xavier Hufkens in Brussels, Berggruen Gallery in San Francisco, Eykyn Maclean in New York, and Wolfs Gallery in Cleveland.

Critical engagement with de Kooning's practice has remained vigorous well into the twenty-first century, with substantial coverage appearing in Frieze, The New Yorker, The Art Newspaper, The Times, and ArtCritic between 2024 and 2026. An exhibition at the Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice drew particular attention in 2024. Looking ahead, the centenary of de Kooning's departure from Rotterdam is marked by Willem de Kooning at Work, a major retrospective developed in collaboration with the Art Institute of Chicago and The Willem de Kooning Foundation, opening at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam on 9 October 2026 and running through 17 January 2027. The exhibition is accompanied by new research on the artist's drawings from the Art Institute of Chicago and a Dutch-language publication on his artistic trajectory from the Rijksmuseum — together representing a significant new chapter in de Kooning scholarship.