Major Willem de Kooning Retrospective Exhibition Coming to Italy

A major retrospective exhibition on Willem de Kooning will open this April to coincide with the 60th Venice Biennale. Held in the Temporary Exhibitions Halls at the Gallerie dell’Accademia, the forthcoming show will spotlight the Dutch-American artist’s time in Italy, between 1959 and 1960, including several of his “Black and White Rome” drawings.

Curated by Gary Garrels and Mario Codognato, the show will comprise of roughly 75 works, offering audiences a comprehensive survey of de Kooning’s most expressive period, and the largest such exhibition on his work to date in Italy. The exhibition curators wanted to emphasize de Kooning’s “special connections with Italy,” wrote a release. Interestingly enough, his works were rarely shown in Italy following his death, the last exhibition being nearly two decades ago. “Finally, what convinced us was the quality of the curators’ selection, featuring around 75 works that represent the breadth of de Kooning’s most expressive periods.”

Highlights of the show include three monumental landscape paintings made in 1960, Door to the River, A Tree in Naples and Villa Borghese, which will be shown together. The exhibition will also emphasize 13 lesser-known bronze sculptures de Kooning created, which served as a precursor to his larger sculptural works in the ’70s.

Willem de Kooning e l’Italia opens on April 17 and runs through September 15.

Gallerie dell’Accademia
Calle della Carità, 1050,
30123 Venezia VE, Italy