More than 120 works by Willem de Kooning will hang in Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum when “Willem de Kooning at work” opens on 9 October. It’s the largest European exhibition of his work in more than 40 years.
The show runs until 17 January 2027. There’s a particular weight to that return: about 100 years before the exhibition, De Kooning left the Netherlands for New York aboard a cargo ship. Now he’s coming back to a museum that houses Rembrandt and Van Gogh.
A Migrant’s Return
The artist’s departure tells a story of movement. A young man boarded a cargo vessel, crossed the Atlantic and built a life in a new country. He went on to join the New York artists who pioneered Abstract Expressionism in the 1930s and 1940s, later becoming an iconic figure in modern art.
That journey matters in a Europe where debates over who belongs, and what newcomers contribute, grow louder by the year. The exhibition doesn’t make that argument itself. But De Kooning’s life invites a question: what did Europe’s cultural world gain, and what did it lose, when talent crossed borders?
Placing De Kooning Among the Dutch Masters
The Rijksmuseum has chosen to place De Kooning alongside Dutch masters such as Van Gogh and Rembrandt. It’s a deliberate pairing. This choice puts an artist who left the Netherlands within the national story of Dutch painting, rather than treating him as a foreign figure from the American canon.
For visitors, the scale is the draw. More than 120 works make up a substantial survey, one that European audiences haven’t had the chance to see in more than four decades.
Elsewhere in European Culture
A separate Euronews video covered Nailympia in London, where artists from around the world created fantasy designs on fingernails. Their themes drew on goddesses, Chinese folklore, magical forests and steampunk.
In the fantasy category, competitors had one hour to finish their work. Judges assessed both concept and overall appearance. Some designs spread elaborate themes across all ten nails, turning each hand into a miniature scene. Other categories tested technical skills, as competitors filed and decorated long stiletto nails against the clock.
Judges encouraged artists to develop their own styles rather than simply follow previous winners.
Why This Matters:
Culture rarely respects borders, and these stories show it. A Dutch-born painter who left on a cargo ship is celebrated a century later in the museum of his birth country, while artists from around the world gather in London to compete and learn from one another. Europe’s cultural life has long been built on exchange and on people who moved. As political arguments over migration harden, exhibitions like this one offer a reminder, from the facts alone, of what mobility has produced. Public museums that open such shows to wide audiences also keep shared heritage accessible to everyone, not only those who can afford it.