Joop Sanders (born October 6, 1921) is a Dutch-American painter, educator, and founding member of the American Abstract Expressionist group. He is the youngest member of the first generation of the New York School. Joop Sanders in his studio, circa 1980

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 between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

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 co ...

, and

Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMoA) is an 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 the northwest end of the Benjamin Fr ...

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 at 215 West 57th Street in Manhattan, New York City, New York. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists. Although artists may stu ...

, in New York City, for six months with artist George Grosz. In 1940 Sanders met

Elaine de Kooning Elaine Marie Catherine de Kooning (, née Fried; 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 edito ...

and

Willem de Kooning Willem de Kooning (; ; April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was a Dutch-American abstract expressionist artist. He was born in Rotterdam and moved to the United States in 1926, becoming an American citizen in 1962. In 1943, he married painter El ...

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, composition teacher, writer, and later a conductor of his own and other American music. Copland was referred to by his peers and critics as "the Dean of American Com ...

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 aloneness 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. In the mid-1950's Sanders left New York for Europe. In 1960 he was the first young American painter to be given a one-man show at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, which played a crucial role in introducing advanced American art to Europe. Sanders established a considerable European reputation. 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 returned to New York in 1959, where his work became almost monochromatic and fieldlike. It never was impersonal; he always retained an emotional content. During the 1960s, Sanders created sectional paintings which would be arranged in a variety of configurations by the owner or even construed as three-dimensional sculpture. Sanders exhibited extensively in Europe in the 1950's. 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 . Castellani is known for his "paintings of light". He studied at the Ecole Nationale S ...

and Piero Manzoni connected his work with many of the leading Italian artists of the period, including Manzoni. 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 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 artist. 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 o ...

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 lieder 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 on February 16, ...

and his grandchildren include artist Isca Greenfield-Sanders and filmmaker Liliana Greenfield-Sanders.

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" 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 ...

, East Hampton, New York, 2015 * ''Elaine de Kooning: Portraits'', National Portrait Gallery, 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) *

, Madison, Wisconsin *

, Philadelphia, PA

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Sanders, Joop 1921 births Living people 20th-century Dutch male artists Dutch emigrants to the United States 20th-century American male artists Abstract expressionist artists Modern painters 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 Sanders, Joop Painters from New York City Sanders, Joop People from Greenwich Village People with acquired American citizenship