Joop Sanders (October 6, 1921 – July 6, 2023) was a Dutch-American painter, educator, and founding member of the American Abstract Expressionist group. He was the youngest member of the first generation of the New York School. Sanders' work is held in the collections of the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

Madison Museum of Contemporary Art The Madison Museum of Contemporary Art (MMoCA), formerly known as the Madison Art Center, is an independent, non-profit art museum located in downtown Madison, Wisconsin. MMoCA is dedicated to exhibiting, collecting, and preserving modern and c ...

, and

Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA) is an List of art museums#North America, art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at ...

Early life and education

Sanders was born on October 6, 1921, in Amsterdam, the Netherlands and emigrated to the United States in 1939. He studied in 1940 at the

Art Students League of New York The Art Students League of New York is an art school in the American Fine Arts Society in Manhattan, New York City. The Arts Students League is known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists. Although artists may study f ...

, in New York City, for six months with artist

George Grosz George Grosz (; ; born Georg Ehrenfried Groß; July 26, 1893 – July 6, 1959) was a German artist known especially for his caricatural drawings and paintings of Berlin life in the 1920s. He was a prominent member of the Berlin Dada and New Obj ...

. In 1940 Sanders met

Elaine de Kooning Elaine Marie Catherine de Kooning ( , ; ; March 12, 1918 – February 1, 1989) was an Abstract Expressionist and Figurative Expressionist painter in the post-World War II era. She wrote extensively on the art of the period and was an editorial ...

and

Willem de Kooning Willem de Kooning ( , ; April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was a Dutch-American abstract expressionist artist. Born in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, he moved to the United States in 1926, becoming a US citizen in 1962. In 1943, he married pa ...

at a concert featuring the music of

Virgil Thomson Virgil Thomson (November 25, 1896 – September 30, 1989) was an American composer and critic. He was instrumental in the development of the "American Sound" in classical music. He has been described as a modernist, a neoromantic, a neoclassic ...

Aaron Copland Aaron Copland (, ; November 14, 1900December 2, 1990) was an American composer, critic, writer, teacher, pianist, and conductor of his own and other American music. Copland was referred to by his peers and critics as the "Dean of American Compos ...

and

William Schuman William Howard Schuman (August 4, 1910February 15, 1992) was an American composer and arts administrator. Life Schuman was born into a Jewish family in Manhattan, New York City, son of Samuel and Rachel Schuman. He was named after the 27th U.S. ...

. By the mid-1940s, Elaine de Kooning had painted approximately a dozen portraits of Sanders, which seem to express loneliness and androgyny. Sanders spoke at Elaine de Kooning's memorial service.

Work

Sanders was one of twenty original members and a charter member of The Club, which was located at 39 East 8th Street. Sanders married Isca Jörgensen at The Club on December 27, 1950. Until his death, he was the only surviving artist to have exhibited at the historic 9th Street Show of 1951. In the mid-1950's Sanders left New York for Europe. This move—just at the time abstract expressionism was being accepted in America—resulted, however, in his being overlooked as one of the first younger artists to contribute to the style in New York. Sanders established a considerable European reputation and exhibited extensively in Europe. In addition, his inclusion in exhibitions with the Zero Group, curated by

Enrico Castellani Enrico Castellani (4 August 1930 – 1 December 2017) was an Italian artist. He was active in Italy from the early 1960s, and associated with Piero Manzoni and . From 1959 he made monochromatic geometric relief (art), reliefs using nails from a n ...

and

Piero Manzoni Piero Manzoni di Chiosca e Poggiolo (July 13, 1933 – February 6, 1963) was an Italian artist best known for his ironic approach to avant-garde art. Often compared to the work of Yves Klein, his own work anticipated, and directly influenced ...

connected his work with many of the leading Italian artists of the period, including Manzoni. Sanders returned to New York in 1959, where his work became almost monochromatic and fieldlike. It never was impersonal; he always retained an emotional content. In 1960 he was the first young American painter to be given a one-man show at the

Stedelijk Museum The Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (; Municipal Museum Amsterdam), colloquially known as the Stedelijk, is a museum for modern art, contemporary art, and design located in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

in Amsterdam, which played a crucial role in introducing advanced American art to Europe. During the late 1960s, Sanders created sectional paintings which would be arranged in a variety of configurations by the owner or even construed as three-dimensional sculpture. Horizon Magazine's art critic, Hiram Butler, described Sanders' painting "Pantagruel, 1955" as roughly painted and reflects abstract-expressionist ''Angst'' at its fullest. Yet, like its namesake from Rabelais' work, it is also good-humored. American commercial colors elevate the pitch and serve to delight. Along with the serious express there is a capricious and fanciful, almost mocking stroke. Sanders' "Gong, 1979", places the power of abstract-expressionist color and painterliness within a more formal and refined structure. Shapes are larger than in his earlier work. the dominant purples, deep greens, and pinks are rich and more closely hued. The combination results in a powerful, serene rhythm. When asked about reincorporating earlier tendencies in his art, Sanders responds, "the artist is like Sisyphus, punished by Zeus to try forever to roll a rock uphill which forever rolls back upon him." Art critic

Lawrence Campbell Laurence Campbell is a British comics artist best known for his work in '' 2000 AD'', but he has also recently received attention from his work for Marvel. Biography Campbell started evening courses at the London Cartoon Centre and then studie ...

in describing Sanders' work for ''Art in America'' in 1987 at Alfred Kren Gallery in New York remarked: "These paintings are like spirit photographs in which the spirit reaches out and touches the viewer.

Barnett Newman Barnett Newman (January 29, 1905 – July 4, 1970) was an American painter. He has been critically regarded as one of the major figures of abstract expressionism, and one of the foremost color field painters. His paintings explore the sense ...

once said to Sanders on seeing paintings like these, “Of all the painters working in the context of color field, you seem to me to be the only one who, like, me, concerns himself with the humanist spirit in painting. ''The New York Times'' critic Joseph Masheck in reviewing the Kren show stated:

"It is nice to see somebody stick to his guns and have the world catch up. Joop (pronounced ''Yope'') Sanders came to New York from Amsterdam in 1939 as a teen-ager; 10 years later, he was the youngest founding member of ''The Club,'' of those most radical painters of the day, the Abstract Expressionists. We would probably know him better by now if he hadn't been back in Europe during the later 50's. In sampling two separate decades, the 60's and the 80's, this exhibition provokes a bracing double take. First comes a glowing roomful of paintings, each practically a monochrome but divided into rounded zones, from 1962 and 1963. Here a spiritual purity akin to Ad Reinhardt's, though more lyrical, makes itself felt. Then, in another room, are works of the present, some on paper startlingly like paintings by that compatriot of Sanders', Willem de Kooning. In a different vein, two small canvases, ''Pogrom'' (1984) and ''Interrogation Room'' (1986), would be morally serious even without the titles. Toughly sensitive and in more than one sense reviving are some small recent drawings and watercolors: in these the Orientalizing ''calligraphies'' of artists and poets and others who refused to ''buy into'' the American 50's are renewed with winning finesse and timely conviction by an individualist still unspoiled.

Personal life

Sanders was married for 68 years to the

lied In the Western classical music tradition, ( , ; , ; ) is a term for setting poetry to classical music. The term is used for any kind of song in contemporary German and Dutch, but among English and French speakers, is often used interchangea ...

er singer Isca Sanders-Jörgensen (1925–2019). His son is the sculptor, John Sanders and his daughter is the attorney, Karin Greenfield-Sanders. His son-in-law is the photographer

Timothy Greenfield-Sanders Timothy Greenfield-Sanders (born February 16, 1952) is an American documentary filmmaker and portrait photographer based in New York City. The majority of his work is shot in large format. Early life Greenfield-Sanders was born in 1952, in Mi ...

and his grandchildren include artist

Isca Greenfield-Sanders Isca Greenfield-Sanders (born 1978) is an American landscape painter based in New York City. Early life Greenfield-Sanders was born in New York City to lawyer, Karin and photographer, Timothy Greenfield-Sanders. She grew up in New York City's E ...

and filmmaker Liliana Greenfield-Sanders. Sanders died at his home in

Putnam County, New York Putnam County is a County (New York), county in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 97,668. The county seat is Carmel (hamlet), New York, Carmel, within one of th ...

, on July 6, 2023, at the age of 101.

Exhibitions

9th Street Art Exhibition The 9th Street Art Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture is the official title artist Franz Kline hand-lettered onto the poster he designed for the Ninth Street Show (May 21-June 10, 1951).

, 60 East 9th Street, 1951''"9th St." Show Poster''
* "Joop Sanders" 1959 Stedelijk Museum * "Joop Sanders" 1965 Bertha Schaefer Gallery * ''Abstractions'', Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York City, 1988/89 * ''Dubuffet to de Kooning: Expressionist Prints from Europe and America'', Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York City, 1998/99 * ''Sanders and Greenfield-Sanders'', Snitzer Gallery, Miami, FL, 2003 * ''Elaine de Kooning Portrayed'',

Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center In November 1945, Jackson Pollock and his wife Lee Krasner moved to what is now known as the Pollock-Krasner House and Studio in Springs in the town of East Hampton on Long Island, New York. The wood-frame house on with a nearby barn is o ...

, East Hampton, New York, 2015 * ''Elaine de Kooning: Portraits'',

National Portrait Gallery National Portrait Gallery may refer to: * National Portrait Gallery (Australia), in Canberra * National Portrait Gallery (Sweden), in Mariefred *National Portrait Gallery (United States), in Washington, D.C. *National Portrait Gallery, London ...

, Washington, D.C., 2015/16 * Galerie Biedermann, 2021/22

Collections

Sanders' work is held in the following permanent collections: *

, New York: 1 work (as of 16 November 2022) *

, Amsterdam, Netherlands *

, Madison, Wisconsin *

, Philadelphia, PA

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Sanders, Joop 1921 births 2023 deaths 20th-century Dutch male artists Dutch emigrants to the United States 20th-century American male artists Abstract expressionist artists American abstract painters 20th-century American painters 20th-century American printmakers 21st-century American painters American male painters Art Students League of New York alumni Artists from Amsterdam Dutch male painters Painters from New York City Painters from Amsterdam Artists from Manhattan People from Greenwich Village Naturalized citizens of the United States Dutch men centenarians American men centenarians