Venice, 18 April. (askanews) – A great name of American abstract expressionism with all the strength of his pictorial, but also sculptural gesture. The Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice inaugurated the exhibition “Willem De Kooning and Italy”, which presents an important series of paintings somehow linked to the artist’s Italian stays between 1959 and 1969.
“This exhibition – said Mario Codognato, one of the curators of the exhibition – wants to tell the story of Willem De Kooning’s relationship with Italy and reconstruct the two short stays of 1959 and 1969, which however we believe were very important for his artistic path. So we exhibited works prior to the two periods and also after the two periods precisely to demonstrate what we believe was an important influence and path in his work.”
The exhibition project brings together 75 works, making it the largest retrospective of the artist ever organized in Italy. But what is perhaps most striking is the relationship between De Kooning and the works preserved in the Accademia Galleries.
“He is a painter painter, a painter of matter – added Giulio Manieri Elia, director of the Venetian museum – a painter who seems to us to be able to dialogue very well with the rest of the collection, with the Venetian pictorial school which is a pictorial school of matter , of color, so we feel like it’s an extraordinary opportunity.”
The exhibition, open to the public until September 15, was organized in collaboration with the Willem De Kooning Foundation, a private foundation that manages the artist’s estate and promotes the study and valorization of his life and work through research, exhibitions and educational programs.
