Willem de Looper, born October 30, 1932, was the third child of Wilhelmina Johanna and Henri Bastiaan de Looper. He grew up in The Hague and had a Montessori education. During the German occupation of the Netherlands during
World War II, the family moved three times, once settling with a family friend who was a musician. This started a lifelong love of music that would later influence de Looper's visual art. As the war ended and American publications, like
The New Yorker,
Saturday Evening Post, and
Life became available, de Looper immersed himself in their content and spent a great deal of time copying the illustrations. He also developed a fascination with and love of America and American culture. At
American University de Looper studied with
Robert Gates,
Sarah Marindah Baker, and Ben Summerford. (De Looper considered Summerford his greatest mentor.) De Looper continued to live with his brother during his university years and his brother financed his education. He traveled frequently home to visit his parents as well as Dutch art museums. After graduating from American University in 1957, de Looper served two years in the
United States Army in Germany at
Flak-Kaserne Ludwigsburg as a clerk typist following basic training at
Fort Jackson, South Carolina. During his tour in Europe, in 1958, he attended the Brussels World's Fair and saw Abstract Expressionist paintings for the first time in the American Pavilion. He traveled as much as he could throughout the continent to see art and collected and studied art magazines and journals. He also married during this time, Lili Mentrop, a childhood friend, but the marriage was brief. He died January 30, 2009, of emphysema. ==Exhibitions==