Willem de Kooning's multifaceted painting shifts constantly between the poles of figuration – as in the well-known Women pictures – and the abstract gesture, which is strongly linked to action painters like Jackson Pollock and Franz Kline.

This interchange is being presented in exceptional examples of his work, such as the early 1940s portraits and the subsequent biomorphic, abstract compositions, in which the Black and White Paintings play an overriding role.
A key focus will be on de Kooning's Women pictures of the 1950s and the block of monumental abstracts of around 1960, explosive gestures most representative of action painting – slashes of the painter's brush. The 1970s are represented with opaque-painted pictures, their subject matter both the substance of flesh and skin and also the abstracted landscape space. The show finishes off with Willem de Kooning's late works of the 1980s – elegant, light-flooded, graphically meandering compositions.

The exhibition is presenting an additional attraction in a concentrated selection of works by contemporary painters – including Brice Marden and David Reed – face to face as it were with the late Willem de Kooning. This will demonstrate the relevance of abstract painting when juxtaposed to the dominant realism in today's painting.