Willem de Kooning: The Breakthrough Years, 1945–50
Willem de Kooning, Black Friday, 1948. Princeton University Art Museum. Gift of H. Gates Lloyd, Class of 1923, and Mrs. Lloyd in honor of the Class of 1923. © The Willem de Kooning Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Princeton University Art Museum
Princeton, NJ 08544-1018
USA
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Willem de Kooning: The Breakthrough Years, 1945–50
Willem de Kooning: The Breakthrough Years, 1945–50 traces the development of de Kooning’s approach to painting in the period when he cemented his position as a leader of the American avant-garde.
Anchored by works from de Kooning’s first solo exhibition, held in 1948, including Black Friday—a highlight in Princeton’s collections—as well as paintings from more than a dozen museums and private collections, The Breakthrough Years is the first exhibition to focus on the enormously generative and creative period that surrounded de Kooning’s full-scale debut in the New York art world. During this time, de Kooning refined the exchange in his work between figuration and abstraction through experimentation, resulting in compositions that are among his most celebrated. The Breakthrough Years offers a rare opportunity to study a defining moment in the career of an artist who fundamentally redefined painting in the twentieth century to become one of modernism’s foundational representatives.
Curated by
Inaugural Allen R. Adler, Class of 1967, Distinguished Curator and Lecturer (2015–19), Princeton University Art Museum; Chief Curator Emeritus of Painting and Sculpture, Museum of Modern Art
Houghton Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art and Head, Division of Modern and Contemporary Art
,Harvard Art Museums
Curatorial Research Associate
,Princeton University Art Museum
Exhibition Project Support
Willem de Kooning: The Breakthrough Years, 1945–50 is made possible by leadership support from the Allen R. Adler, Class of 1967, Curatorial Leadership Fund; the Fanzhi Foundation for Art and Education; the Frances E. and Elias Wolf, Class of 1920, Fund; Shelly and Tony Malkin; and the Robert Lehman Foundation.
Additional support is provided by Christie’s, the Joseph L. Shulman Foundation Fund for Art Museum Publications, and the Melanie and John Clarke Exhibition Fund.
The publication Willem de Kooning: The Breakthrough Years, 1945–50 is generously supported by The Willem de Kooning Foundation.
Exhibitions at the Princeton University Art Museum are made possible by contributors to the Director’s Exhibition Fund: Allen R. Adler and Frances Beatty Adler, Len and Laura Berlik, John L. Cecil and Celia A. Felsher, Jeannie and Jitender Chopra, John and Susan Diekman, Donald and Martine E. Elefson, William S. Fisher and Sakurako D. Fisher, Stacey Roth Goergen and Robert Goergen, Preston H. Haskell III, Robert and Lynn Johnston, Gene and Sueyun Locks, David and Catherine Loevner, Shelly and Tony Malkin, Edward E. Matthews, Dean and Jill Mitchell, Christopher E. Olofson, Anne C. Sherrerd, Preeti and Sanjay Swani, and Theodora D. Walton and William H. Walton III. With additional support from: Tena and Chris Achen, Sarah Lee Elson, Christopher C. Forbes and Astrid Forbes, Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen, Paul G. Haaga Jr. and Heather Sturt Haaga, Padmaja Kumari Parmar and Kush M. Parmar, Mark W. Stevens and Annalyn Martha Swan, Judy and Ed Stier, Jonathan Lee Walton.
