REMEMBERING A DC ART GIANT: WILLEM DE LOOPER

Mr. Willem de Looper was one of those rare, incredible people who slipped quietly into the DC art scene and, over the course of 59 years, from his immigration here in 1950 until his death in 2009, changed it forever.
Born and raised in The Hauge during the second World War, de Looper was fascinated by American culture from an early age. During his childhood, he told Archives of American Art,
“My only art experience was – well, it’s not really art experience. It was exposure to the United States, and that took form in two ways. We listened as soon as we could after the war to the AFN… And so I became very early quite interested in America… I mean, also Americans – let’s face it – they were looked at – and Canadians and the British – they were looked at as liberators.”
This fascination grew until 1950, when de Looper –only seventeen years old– set sail on the New Amsterdam bound for America. It was during the subsequent years, while he attended American University, that de Looper’s ambition to be a professional artist solidified. Trying to be practical, he at first turned his talents toward illustration. Fate had another plan for Willem de Looper, however: just as he was hired to join the illustration staff for a department store catalog, his life was turned upside-down. “In retrospect again it looks like a total disaster – I got drafted in the American Army,” de Looper explained. “And without making a peep or anything or making any attempt to go into graduate school, I just went.”
De Looper drew and painted as much as he could during his two years in a transportation company of the US Army, and upon his return he found work as a security guard at the Philips Collection. Surrounded by art, de Looper’s painting went into overdrive. In his studio apartment on 20th and N de Looper spent every spare moment painting. His style slowly evolved from figurative painting to abstraction. In his own words,
“I painted in many styles, developing my first interest, which obviously had been born somewhat earlier, towards abstraction. And always, you know, it’s one of those things that people are constantly asking me about: do you – how do you start painting abstract paintings? You do that by learning how to deal with form and – but also you have to create not only the colors but also the form and all that sort of thing. And I did that, I think, by painting first landscapes and figures that became more abstract or – to use that word fairly loosely, as I went along from painting to painting.”

“I started really using my eyes when I was at the Phillips,” de Looper explained.By 1966, the security guard was showing his work in a solo exhibition at Jefferson Place Gallery, one of the premier exhibition spaces for the emerging Washington Color School. By 1975 de Looper had a solo exhibition at the Phillips Collection, where he was now an assistant curator. He was head curator of the Phillips Collection by 1982, a post he held for five years before retiring in 1987 to focus more on his own painting.
De Looper never stopped experimenting. His paintings phased through horizontal geometry in earthtones during the 1970s to freer brushstrokes of vibrant color during the 1980s, switching also between oil paints or water-based acrylic paints, canvas or paper. His various processes also shifted dramatically over the years, from pouring paint onto a canvas laid out on the floor to traditional easel painting to dyeing paper.
Willem de Looper died of emphysema on January 30, 2009, at the age of 76. He left an indelible mark on the Washington D.C. art scene, and is deeply missed to this day by his many friends and admirers.

International Arts and Artists, the parent organization of the Hillyer Art Space, is looking to sell Unknown, Willem de Looper, 1979 63″x 48″ acrylic on canvas (pictured above) to benefit the Hillyer Art Space. Please direct any inquiries to (202) 338-0680 or rachelw@artsandartists.org