De Kooning takes his place beside Rembrandt at the Rijksmuseum
An exhibition featuring more than 120 works opens in Amsterdam on Friday.
The Rijksmuseum opens a major exhibition on Willem de Kooning on Friday. Two of his best-known paintings will temporarily be placed in the Gallery of Honour, alongside works by Rembrandt and other Dutch masters.
The exhibition Willem de Kooning at work can be seen from 9 October 2026 to 17 January 2027. The Rijksmuseum is showing more than 120 works, with De Kooning’s drawings providing a thread through his artistic development.
Woman I and Woman and Bicycle will be hung in the Gallery of Honour. The works will thus be placed among paintings generally associated with Dutch painting from earlier centuries.
The exhibition was created in collaboration with the Art Institute of Chicago and The Willem de Kooning Foundation in New York. The loans come from international collections and include paintings and sculptures as well as drawings.
De Kooning was born in Rotterdam in 1904 and left for the United States in 1926. There, he became a central figure in the New York School, the movement that also includes artists such as Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner and Mark Rothko.
The Rijksmuseum’s main aim is to show that drawing was not merely a preparatory step for De Kooning. According to the museum, sketching, correcting and repeating formed an independent part of his work and offered insight into how he developed images.
The exhibition marks one hundred years since De Kooning left the Netherlands. The museum thereby presents him not only as an American post-war artist, but also as a native of Rotterdam who received an important part of his artistic training in the Netherlands.
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The exhibition, dates, loans and works in the Gallery of Honour were checked directly with the Rijksmuseum. Biographical background and artistic context were confirmed by an independent cultural source.
- confirmed The exhibition runs from 9 October 2026 to 17 January 2027. — The Rijksmuseum lists this exhibition period. source
- confirmed More than 120 works are being shown. — The museum states that the exhibition includes more than 120 works. source
- confirmed Woman I and Woman and Bicycle will be hung in the Gallery of Honour. — This placement is stated on the official exhibition page. source
Editor's note
The exhibition dates, number of works and placement in the Gallery of Honour were published by the Rijksmuseum and confirmed externally. The text describes the exhibition factually and contains no review.Sources
- Willem de Kooning at work — Rijksmuseum
- Willem de Kooning in het Rijksmuseum — Rijksmuseum
- Willem de Kooning at Work — The Atlantic
More on this in Dutch media
- De Telegraaf — „willem de kooning”
- AD — „willem de kooning”
- de Volkskrant — „willem de kooning”