John Franklin Koenig    Bio


Born in Seattle in 1924 - 2008, John-Franklin Koenig grew up in the Wallingford neighborhood. He became interested in art at a young age -- particularly the Asian art he found at the Seattle Art Museum. In 1943, Koenig was drafted into the army and fought in Europe until the end of the war. Waiting to return to the U.S., he studied at the University for American soldiers in Biarritz and fell in love with France and French culture. It was there that he first took a course in art, painting several pieces that were retained by the army as "soldier art."

Returning to the U.S. after the war, Koenig enrolled at the University of Washington where he focused on the French language and literature. He studied design and art as well, and was introduced to the Seattle art scene and the works of Mark Tobey, Morris Graves, and Guy Anderson. On finishing his degree in 1948, Koenig moved to Paris where he lived for the following 30 years. In Paris, he began working on collage works and later developed a distinctive painting technique.

Koenig found continual inspiration in works by European artists and also by Oriental works he saw on nearly a dozen trips to Japan. However, the roots of his art are clearly Northwest. Koenig says:

"When my European friends come to the Northwest they say, Now we see where your work comes from. Because here, we're bathed in gray and white, and soft pink and blue and opal. Everything is shades of blue and composed of light and shadow.”

Koenig organized a series of exhibitions of Northwest artists to tour France. The first exhibition in 1984 was titled Northwest Art in Corporate Collections. The next showcase, Seattle Style, was a show of 12 Northwest artists, and it premiered at Seattle's annual Bumbershoot Festival. This exhibition toured France in the late 1980s. Koenig says, "Both shows were imagined in an attempt to further the art of the Northwest at a time when the New York-oriented Seattle Art Museum and the Tacoma Art Museum were completely neglecting the art and artists of the region" (Koenig). His attempts to gain exhibitions for Northwest artists in Northwest museums became nothing short of a crusade -- the subject of bitter diatribes and letters to museum administrators.

By 1984, when he was 60, Koenig had an astonishing total of 103 solo shows to his credit, in cities throughout the world. None has been more special to him than the 1970 retrospective exhibition at the Seattle Art Museum, shortly before the death of museum founder Dr. Richard Fuller (1897-1976).

In 1986, John 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 around the world and are part of collections in a number of international museums: e.g., the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris and the Musée National d'Art Modern (Paris); the National Museum of Modern Art and the 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.


John Frankin Koenig Solo Exhibition August 2007

John Franklin Koenig
Dido Remembered
Mixed Media on Canvas
33 x 33 inches
Sold

John Franklin Koenig
Milk And Ashes
Mixed Media on Canvas
36.5 x 59 inches

John Franklin Koenig
Niji Pat
Mixed Media on Canvas
10 x 13.5 inches

John Franklin Koenig
Untitled
Ink on paper
18.5 x 23 inches framed
Sold

John Franklin Koenig
Untitled
Ink on paper
18.5 x 23 inches

John Franklin Koenig
AOX II
Mixed Media on Canvas
20 x 26 inches

John Franklin Koenig
Athena I
Mixed Media on Canvas
33.5 x 41 inches

John Franklin Koenig
Thrusts and Squares
Mixed Media on Canvas
20 x 40 inches

John Franklin Koenig
Champs/Chant Pour Hermeros
Mixed Media on Canvas
32.5 x 40 inches



John Franklin Koenig
Kuro Koen
Mixed Media on Canvas
73.5 x 37 inches



John Franklin Koenig
Ode for Willa Cather
Mixed Media on Canvas
71 x 36.5 inches



John Franklin Koenig
Yvanoff
Mixed Media on Canvas
40 x 40 inches