Opening Willem de Kooning Rotterdam New York
One hundred years after Willem de Kooning left Rotterdam for New York, three of his sculptures stand on the quay outside Fenix. To mark their installation, Fenix presents a programme of events including a lecture, Slow Looking sessions in the museum and live music on the quay.
Opening Programme
With a museum ticket:
from 12:00 p.m., every hour - Slow Looking-sessions: Spend 15 minutes with Man in Wainscott (1969) by Willem de Kooning with one of our guides and discover together new ways of looking at an abstract painting.
Starts every hour on the hour. Duration: 15 minutes. Join at the painting in the All Directions exhibition.
1 p.m. to 1:30 p.m.: Lecture by Wim Pijbes: Willem de Kooning: Rotterdam - New York
Free admission:
2 p.m. to 2:30 p.m.: Celebratory opening of the sculptures on the quay, with a musical performance by Carlos Ayuso's Wild Bunch.
Inspired by the roaring 20s and early jazz pioneers such as Louis Armstrong and King Oliver, this group of jazz musicians brings to life the music that once filled the streets, dance halls and clubs of both New Orleans and New York.
The Quay of Departure
On 18 July 2026, it is exactly one hundred years since the 22-year-old Willem de Kooning left the quays of his birthplace, Rotterdam. Hidden aboard the cargo ship SS Shelley, he travelled to New York. He departed from a city in full bloom: Rotterdam in the Roaring Twenties was developing into a vibrant port city of global significance.
From this summer, Seated Woman (1969), Standing Figure (1969-1984) and Reclining Figure (1969-1982) stand on the waterfront of the city where he grew up. Together, they tell a story about migration, the journey of an artist, and the unseen connection between the young house painter who slipped away by night and the internationally celebrated artist who, decades later, could look back at Rotterdam and see her anew.
From Hofplein to Fenix
The three bronze sculptures come from Hofplein, where they are temporarily unavailable to the public due to redevelopment works. On the quay where De Kooning boarded the SS Shelley in 1926, they find a temporary home at the museum about migration. Here, stories are told about leaving, being on the move, and finding a new home.
Inside Fenix, the painting Man in Wainscott (1969) is on display in the permanent collection. De Kooning painted it beneath the open skies of Long Island on the Atlantic coast. In the atrium stands a smaller model of Standing Figure, on loan from the ABN AMRO Foundation.
Seated Woman (1969) on the quay at Fenix. Photo: Titia Hahne
Publication
This illustrated publication brings to life the vibrant Rotterdam in which De Kooning grew up and developed as an artist, both at the academy and at the design firm Giddings & Zonen. At the same time, it sketches New York in the 1920s, where, like many others, he arrived as a migrant and began a new life.
There, Willem de Kooning grew into one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century. The publication includes contributions by Anne Kremers (Fenix), Wim Pijbes (Droom en Daad) and Ludo van Halem (Rijksmuseum).
Lecture
During the opening, Wim Pijbes will give a talk about his contribution to the book. The talk will take place at the back of the exhibition All Directions, on the east side of the museum, and is accessible with a museum admission ticket.
design: Irma Boom
A New Appreciation
To mark the centenary of Willem de Kooning’s departure, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam is dedicating an exhibition to the artist this autumn. Organised in collaboration with The Art Institute of Chicago, it is the most comprehensive survey of De Kooning’s work ever presented in the Netherlands.
The exhibition offers a renewed appreciation of his work: not only as that of an American master, but also as that of a Dutch artist whose influence reached far beyond his country of birth. The exhibition is on view from 9 October 2026 to 17 January 2027.
Partners
This project is realised in collaboration with The Willem de Kooning Foundation, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rijksmuseum, CBK Rotterdam, the Municipality of Rotterdam, Droom en Daad, nai010 publishers, Irma Boom and the ABN AMRO Foundation.