Throughout April, May and June the Van Gogh Museum displayed an exceptional piece by Willem de Kooning, Montauk IV (1969), on loan from its Amsterdam neighbour, the Stedelijk Museum. The Van Gogh Museum asked me and my colleague Natalie Kuijk to develop a tour on De Kooning and Van Gogh. What do these two artists have in common?
Photo by Unknown - Willem de Kooning in His Studio, Smithsonian Institution Archives. Local Number SIA2011-2241. Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19990417
Like Vincent van Gogh, Willem de Kooning was a Dutch artist who aspired an international life. As a young man, he moved from the Netherlands to New York in 1926. Later, in the 1960s, he moved to the American countryside, the Hamptons, where he enjoyed cycling and taking in Montauk's beautiful views. De Kooning made a similar move to Van Gogh in his thirties. Van Gogh had started painting in Holland but moved via Paris to the South of France in the 1880s, attracted by the Provence's beautiful light and colour.
Natalie and I decided to take Van Gogh's and De Kooning's love of nature as a starting point for the programme (Verhaal op Zaal). We told stories and engaged visitors in conversations about abstract art and figurative art, based on what they saw in Van Gogh's and De Kooning's paintings. We also discussed expressing emotions in nature, through line, colour and gesture: what emotional responses do you have when you see Van Gogh's Reaper? And what about this De Kooning? Most visitors came to the museum to see Van Gogh and left with a new appreciation of De Kooning's art.
Have a look at Montauk IV in the Stedelijk Museum collection: what do you think you see yourself? Would you call this work 'expressive'? And why? Would you call it 'abstract'?
Natalie and I delivered the tours weekly, in both English and Dutch, throughout May and June.
You can join the Verhaal op Zaal tours in the Van Gogh Museum every Thursday. (De Kooning's Montauk IV is back home, at the Stedelijk Museum, however.)
Natalie and I decided to take Van Gogh's and De Kooning's love of nature as a starting point for the programme (Verhaal op Zaal). We told stories and engaged visitors in conversations about abstract art and figurative art, based on what they saw in Van Gogh's and De Kooning's paintings. We also discussed expressing emotions in nature, through line, colour and gesture: what emotional responses do you have when you see Van Gogh's Reaper? And what about this De Kooning? Most visitors came to the museum to see Van Gogh and left with a new appreciation of De Kooning's art.
Have a look at Montauk IV in the Stedelijk Museum collection: what do you think you see yourself? Would you call this work 'expressive'? And why? Would you call it 'abstract'?
Natalie and I delivered the tours weekly, in both English and Dutch, throughout May and June.
You can join the Verhaal op Zaal tours in the Van Gogh Museum every Thursday. (De Kooning's Montauk IV is back home, at the Stedelijk Museum, however.)
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