Willem de Kooning (1904–1997) trained at Rotterdam’s Academy of Visual Arts. He arrived in New York at 22, a stowaway with a command of traditional draftsmanship that most American artists his age couldn’t touch. Drawing never left him—he is estimated to have made between two and three thousand drawings over his career, most of which have rarely been seen. The Art Institute of Chicago, which holds de Kooning’s monumental Excavation (1950) in its permanent collection, is now staging the first exhibition devoted entirely to his works on paper—over 200 drawings, paintings, sculptures, and prints spanning seven decades. The show frames drawing not as a preliminary activity but as the engine of everything else the artist did. It is the museum’s first solo de Kooning show in over 50 years. —Elena Clavarino