For Willem de Kooning (1904-1997), drawing was a direct extension of the mind. He drew constantly, erasing and redrawing his lines, tracing them onto vellum, and transferring them with carbon paper. He also projected, masked, and rubbed his images, while using spray fixative as a medium in its own right to capture the sensation of a fleeting glimps. The recent exhibition Willem de Kooning Drawing offered an opportunity to conduct technical analysis of many of de Kooning’s drawings to reveal his creative process. Join paper conservator Margaret Holben Ellis and art historian Charlotte Healy for a lively conversation about the years of research leading up to the exhibition and the many technical discoveries that help us understand de Kooning’s oeuvre and drawing practice anew. Ellis and Healy will also reflect on the exhibition’s run at the Art Institute of Chicago and its iteration at the Rijksmuseum to consider broader questions about how drawings are treated, valued, and exhibited.

Willem de Kooning Drawing was on view at the Art Institute of Chicago June 14 – September 20, 2026. Willem de Kooning at work is on view at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam October 9, 2026 – January 17, 2027.

Margaret Holben Ellis and Charlotte Healy examining Willem de Kooning’s Untitled (c. 1950) in the paper lab at the Art Institute of Chicago, December 1, 2022. Photograph by Francesca Casadio.

Speaker Bios

Margaret Holben Ellis is the Eugene Thaw Professor Emerita of Paper Conservation at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, and former director of the Thaw Conservation Center, Morgan Library and Museum. She was the Exhibition Paper Conservator for Willem de Kooning Drawing (2026) at the Art Institute of Chicago and a co-editor of the accompanying catalogue. She was awarded fellowships at the American Academy in Rome, Getty Conservation Institute, and Menil Drawing Institute. She has published essays on Lucas Samaras, Jean Dubuffet, Roy Lichtenstein, and Jackson Pollock, and edited Historical and Philosophical Issues in the Conservation of Works of Art on Paper (Getty Conservation Institute, 2014). Active professionally, she is a Fellow and past president of the American Institute for Conservation (AIC); a Fellow of the International Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (IIC), and an Accredited Conservator/Restorer of the Institute of Conservation (ICon).

Charlotte Healy is Associate Research Curator for The Willem de Kooning Foundation. Previously, as a Senior Research Associate in Prints and Drawings at the Art Institute of Chicago, she co-curated the exhibition Willem de Kooning Drawing (2026) and co-edited the accompanying catalogue. Other recent publications include essays in James McNeill Whistler’s Reception and Artistic Legacy: Inventing Whistlerism (2026) and Ruth Asawa: Retrospective (2025). In 2020–21, she was a Morgan-Menil Predoctoral Fellow at the Morgan Library & Museum and the Menil Drawing Institute. In 2018–20, as a fellow and research assistant in Painting & Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art, she contributed to the exhibition Sophie Taeuber-Arp: Living Abstraction (2021–22) and co-edited the accompanying catalogue. She received her BA in art history and mathematics from Williams College and her PhD from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, with a dissertation on Paul Klee.

Moderated by:

Daniella Berman, Ph.D., Director of Partnerships & Programs, The Drawing Foundation
Lisa Conte, Assistant Professor of Paper Conservation and Chair of the Conservation Center

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This event is organized by The Drawing Foundation in partnership with Conservation Center, NYU IFA as part of On Drawings 2026.

Image:  Willem de Kooning. Woman and Abstract Figure, c. 1947–49. Matte opaque paint (possibly oil) with fine particulate filler, enamel, carbon transfer drawing, and graphite pencil on pressed paper cover stock; 44.8 × 57.5 cm (17 5/8 × 22 5/8 in.). Private collection, Los Angeles, courtesy of Caroline Schmidt Fine Art LLC, New York. © 2026 The Willem de Kooning Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.