Scope and Contents

An interview of Willem De Looper conducted 1992 January 26 and February 29, by Benjamin Forgey, for the Archives of American Art. De Looper discusses growing up in the Hague, in Holland, during WWII; his family and educational background; moving to the United States in 1950; his U.S. Army service; his studies at American University and his teachers including Robert Gates, Ben Summerford, William Calfee, and Sarah Baker; his early experiments with abstraction; his first studio in Washington, D.C.; exhibiting at the Jefferson Place Gallery in the 1960s and later at the B.R. Kornblatt Gallery; working at the Phillips Collection for twenty-five years; and materials, techniques, and influences in his painting. He recalls Tom Downing, the Institute of Contemporary Art (Washington, D.C.), John Gernand, Sam Gilliam, Michael Clark, Duncan and Marjorie Phillips, Harold Giese, William Woodward, Jim McLaughlin, and others.

Biographical / Historical

Willem De Looper (1932-2009) was a painter from Washington, D.C.

General

Originally recorded on 4 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 8 digital wav files. Duration is 5 hr., 23 min.