Willem Johan de Looper (October 30, 1932 – January 30, 2009) was an American abstract artist, and chief curator at The Phillips Collection.

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.

[2] In 1950, at age 17, de Looper immigrated to Washington, D.C., joining his older brother Hans who worked at the International Monetary Fund.

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.

He claimed that during 1962–1963, he filled a notebook with watercolors influenced by Phillips Collection artists such as Paul Klee, John Marin, and Arthur Dove.