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AKADEMIE DER KUNSTE
Abteilung Bildende Kunst
Hanseatenweg 10
1000 Berlin 21
Telefon (030) 391 10 31

Mr. and Mrs. Burton Tremaine
563 Park Avenue
New York, N.Y. 10021
U.S.A.

April 12, 1983

Dear Sir, dear Madam,

The Department of Visual Arts at the Akademie der Kunste in West-Berlin is preparing the first comprehensive retrospective exhibition in Germany of the work of WILLEM DE KOONING.  We are doing this in collaboration with the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York as well as the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.  The show will start in New York where it will be presented additionally to the long projected separate retrospective of drawings of Willem de Kooning compiled and curated by Paul Cummings from December 7, 1983 to February 12, 1984.  Afterwards the whole show, the drawing exhibition integrated, will be presented here in Berlin from March 10 to April 28, 1984 as reference to the 80th birthday of the artist.  The show than will travel to Paris to be installed there as summer exhibition from May until the end of August, 1984.

We plan to present the different periods of development in the oeuvre of William de Kooning from its early paintings of the thirties until his recent works, including his sculptures.  We consider this project of utmost importance because the entire work of de Kooning has never been displayed neither in Germany nor in France, where it is almost unknown.  Works of this most important living master oof American painting are only very rarely found in European collections- except at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam - even though they are highly appreciated.  Until now the few de Kooning paintings shown to the German and French public were isolated and stood under special thematical contexts in group exhibitions.

De Kooning himself is giving us his support.  In the course of recent trips I convinced some of the most important lenders to cooperate with us.  We already have loan agreements from the Museum of Modern Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Metropolitan Museum, New York, The Hirshorn Museum, Washinton and the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, as well as from important collections and de Kooning's art dealer Xavier Fourcade.

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