More than 120 works by Willem de Kooning will hang at Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum when “Willem de Kooning at work” opens on 9 October. It’s the biggest European exhibition of his art in more than 40 years, and it runs until 17 January 2027.
The show places the artist alongside Dutch masters such as Van Gogh and Rembrandt, a pairing that says something about how one of the Netherlands’ own is now ranked. De Kooning left for New York on a cargo ship about 100 years before the exhibition. Now he’s coming home, at least on the walls of the country’s flagship national museum.
A Dutchman Made in America
De Kooning belonged to a group of New York artists who pioneered Abstract Expressionism in the 1930s and 1940s. He later became an iconic figure in modern art. The Rijksmuseum’s decision to give him this much space—over 120 works—signals how seriously a major national institution takes his standing among Dutch cultural figures.
The title, “Willem de Kooning at work,” points to the process behind the paintings, not just the finished canvases. The material available here doesn’t include a quote from the museum about its curatorial approach. Nor does it detail the scale of the loan and logistics effort behind a show of this size.
Culture Beyond the Capitals
The same day brought a very different kind of creative display from London. At Nailympia, artists produced fantasy designs on fingernails inspired by goddesses, Chinese folklore, magical forests and steampunk. In the fantasy category, competitors had one hour to finish their work, while judges assessed both concept and overall appearance.
Some entrants spread elaborate themes across all ten nails, turning each hand into a miniature scene. Others put their technical skills to the test, filing and decorating long stiletto nails against the clock. Artists came from around the world. Judges urged them to develop their own styles rather than simply follow previous winners.
It’s a modest story next to a Rijksmuseum blockbuster. Still, both items show creative work that thrives on individual skill, original thinking and the freedom to build something distinctive, whether on a canvas or a fingernail.
What Visitors Can Expect
The exhibition’s four-month window, from 9 October to 17 January 2027, spans the autumn and winter season. The material available doesn’t give ticket prices, visitor targets or public funding figures for the show. Those details would matter to taxpayers who underwrite national museums, but they remain unreported here.
Why This Matters:
Major cultural exhibitions like this one anchor national identity and draw international visitors without any need for new Brussels programmes or regulation. The Rijksmuseum is a Dutch institution making its own curatorial and financial choices; that’s subsidiarity working as it should. De Kooning’s story—a Dutchman who left on a cargo ship and became a pillar of modern art—also reminds us that Europe’s cultural reputation rests on talent that national institutions nurture and celebrate. The unanswered questions are practical: what the show costs, who pays, and what it returns in visitors. Those are matters for Dutch accountability, and they’re the kind of details public institutions should publish as readily as they publish their artworks.