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The Continuing Reinvention of Willem de Kooning

“Willem de Kooning Drawing” at the Art Institute of Chicago reveals the artist as a master draftsman across seven decades of work.

Seeing the de Kooning retrospective at MoMA in 2011 was a revelation. Two hundred paintings, sculptures, drawings and prints exploded off the walls, and the sheer range and virtuosity of his output was astounding. But there has never been, until now, a retrospective dedicated primarily to his drawings, even though drawing was the foundation for everything he made in seven decades of working… even though to understand and appreciate any of his work, you need to witness his radical approach to drawing. The Art Institute of Chicago is currently showing more than 200 of de Kooning’s drawings, and his famous statement “I draw in paint” is readily apparent in this exhibit. Works spanning from 1919 all the way through to 1985, including drawings from his Woman series, showcase an artist who pushed himself relentlessly and with fevered exuberance. (His wife, Elaine De Kooning, wrote in her comments for the 1984 Whitney retrospective that “Bill could work at a painting for months and months, all day long, ten to twelve hours a day.”)

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Willem de Kooning was born in the Netherlands in 1904 and, starting at age 13, studied at the Academy of Visual Arts and Technical Sciences in Rotterdam for four years. Dish with Jugs, charcoal........

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