John-Franklin Koenig (1924 — 2008) was an American artist who, though born and raised in
Seattle
Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...
,
Washington
Washington commonly refers to:
* Washington (state), United States
* Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States
** A metonym for the federal government of the United States
** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered on ...
, and sometimes associated with the '
Northwest School' of artists, spent most of his career in France. He was primarily a painter and collagist, working in a modern, non-representational style. His work appeared in hundreds of exhibitions around the world. He died in Seattle in 2008.
[The Seattle Times, January 24th, 2008; 'John Franklin Koenig, prolific artist, dies at 83', by Sheila Farr]
Early life, education, World War II service
Koenig was born Oct. 24th, 1924, in Seattle, to parents of Swiss-German and French
Huguenot
The Huguenots ( , also , ) were a religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, the Genevan burgomaster Be ...
extraction. He attended Lincoln High School. Interested in art from a young age, he was particularly taken with Asian art he saw at the
Seattle Art Museum.
[Woodside/Braseth Gallery biography; http://www.woodsidebrasethgallery.com/artists/john-franklin-koenig/ ]
In 1943, while studying at the
University of Washington
The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington.
Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle a ...
, he was drafted by the U.S. Army and trained as a tank crewman. Landing at
Cherbourg
Cherbourg (; , , ), nrf, Chèrbourg, ) is a former commune and subprefecture located at the northern end of the Cotentin peninsula in the northwestern French department of Manche. It was merged into the commune of Cherbourg-Octeville on 28 Feb ...
with the
11th Armored Division in 1944, he immediately fell in love with France and French culture.
[Iridescent Light: The Emergence of Northwest Art, by Deloris Tarzan Ament; University of Washington Press, 2002] A few weeks later he received shrapnel wounds to the head and back in the
Battle of the Bulge
The Battle of the Bulge, also known as the Ardennes Offensive, was the last major German offensive (military), offensive military campaign, campaign on the Western Front (World War II), Western Front during World War II. The battle lasted fr ...
.
[Queen Anne & Magnolia News, 4/1/09; A Work in Progress: The Northwest legacy of John Franklin Koenig, by Mike Dillon] While awaiting transfer back to the U.S. after the war's end, he took art classes at a
G.I. University in
Biarritz
Biarritz ( , , , ; Basque also ; oc, Biàrritz ) is a city on the Bay of Biscay, on the Atlantic coast in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department in the French Basque Country in southwestern France. It is located from the border with Spain. ...
. There he made his first paintings.
Koenig returned to the University of Washington, where he studied art, French, and French literature. Around this time he also became interested in the work of Northwest artists such as
Mark Tobey
Mark George Tobey (December 11, 1890 – April 24, 1976) was an American painter. His densely structured compositions, inspired by Asian calligraphy, resemble Abstract expressionism, although the motives for his compositions differ philosophi ...
and
Morris Graves.
[John-Franklin Koenig, Art at Allen Center guide, University of Washington; http://www.cs.washington.edu/building/art/JohnFranklinKoenig/] In 1948 he acquired a degree in Romance languages
and moved to Paris to study at the
Sorbonne on the
G.I. Bill
The Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, commonly known as the G.I. Bill, was a law that provided a range of benefits for some of the returning World War II veterans (commonly referred to as G.I.s). The original G.I. Bill expired in 1956, bu ...
.
In France
After finishing his studies Koenig remained in Paris, working at the bookstore of Jean-Robert Arnaud, who became his longstanding professional and personal partner. In 1950 the two opened the Galerie Arnaud (which lasted until 1976), and in 1955 began publication of the art review ''Ciamise'', which was devoted entirely to non-figurative contemporary art
Koenig's earliest exhibitions were made up of collage work, and he would work in various media (including photography, ceramics, glass, printmaking, and textiles) throughout his career;
by the mid-1950s, however, he had focused on painting, and was gaining a reputation in France as a proponent of abstract expressionism.
In 1958 the first major U.S. exhibition of his work was held at the
Zoë Dusanne Gallery in Seattle. Traveling home to participate proved revelatory to Koenig: "I saw the West again. Here was all this space and light you couldn't see in Europe. This contact with space and light was a huge turning point in my art. It was like being reborn. I found my style."
His longtime interest in Asian art was deepened by his first visit to Japan, in 1960. Inspired by Japanese garden design, he developed a style he called ''Koen'' (Japanese: 'garden').
Acting as his own manager, Koenig traveled extensively, setting up exhibitions along the way. He showed throughout Europe as well as in North Africa, Iceland, and Haiti. He made several more trips to Japan, where he became particularly well-known.
A retrospective of his work was held at the Seattle Art Museum in 1970.
In 1980, feeling hobbled by a weak economy and high taxes in France, Koenig moved back to the U.S.
In Seattle
Having bought a house in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood, Koenig devoted himself to promoting the work of Northwest artists, who he felt were at that time badly underrepresented in Seattle's mainstream art institutions. He organized shows of Northwest art which were presented locally and as traveling exhibitions in France.
He became known as a colorful and controversial figure in Seattle's arts community. Accustomed to the French system of patronage, he was often in conflict with local gallery owners.
Later years
In 1985 Koenig returned to Paris, where he maintained a small apartment. From then on he split his time between France and the U.S., while continuing to paint, travel, and exhibit around the world.
In 1991 he purchased an 18th-century farmhouse in
Nancray-sur-Rimarde
Nancray-sur-Rimarde () is a commune in the Loiret department in north-central France.
See also
*Communes of the Loiret department
The following is the list of the 325 communes of the Loiret department of France.
The communes cooperate in t ...
, 100 km south of Paris, which he converted into a country retreat and studio.
In poor health, Koenig returned to Seattle in 2006.
On January 22, 2008, he died at a care facility in North Seattle. He was 83.
Legacy
In 1986, Koenig received the ''Gold Medal of the City of Paris'' and was later made a ''Commander of the French Order of Arts and Letters''. In 1989, the Paris Arts Center held a retrospective of his work. His paintings and collages have been shown in nearly 150 solo exhibitions around the world and are part of collections in a number of international museums, including the
Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris and the
Musée National d'Art Moderne (Paris); the
National Museum of Modern Art and the
National Museum of Western Art (Tokyo); the Musée des Beaux-Arts and
Musée d'Art Contemporain (Montreal); the Musée de l'État (Luxembourg); and the
Seattle Art Museum.
A major retrospective of Koenig's career opened at the
Whatcom Museum
The Whatcom Museum (housed in the Old City Hall, Lightcatcher building and Syre Education Center) was originally built in 1892 as the city hall for the former town of New Whatcom, before it was joined with surrounding towns to form Bellingham, Was ...
in
Bellingham, Washington, two months after his passing.
[John Franklin Koenig: Northwest Master, Home and Away, by Allyn Cantor; http://www.preview-art.com/previews/04-2008/jfkoenig.html ]
"The process of painting is a search for one's identity; it is an integrated part of the daily task, humble and stubborn, necessary to give form and structure and presence to a sort of glowing figure a la Blake that the artist should be. Oh, make no mistake, the creator is too acquainted with failure, doubt, and nothingness to think that he might be a kind of pure form on the face of earth. He can be no angel, for an angel is the very symbol of perfection, and perfection implies a finite state. Nothing is ever finished for the creator."
- John-Franklin Koenig
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Koenig, John Franklin
1924 births
20th-century American painters
American male painters
21st-century American painters
21st-century American male artists
Painters from Seattle
2008 deaths
Commandeurs of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
20th-century American male artists