Painting by William N. Copley (photo by Paolo Monti, 1960)
William N. Copley (January 24, 1919 – May 7, 1996) also known as CPLY, was an American painter, writer, gallerist, collector, patron, publisher and art entrepreneur.[1] His works as an artist have been classified as late Surrealist and precursory to Pop art.[2]
Early life and introduction to art
Copley was born in New York City in 1919 to parents John and Flora Lodwell; they died shortly after in the 1919 Spanish Flu epidemic. Copley was adopted in 1921 by Ira C. Copley, the owner of sixteen newspaper companies in Chicago and San Diego.[3] Ira C. Copley remarried after the death of his wife, Edith, several years after the adoption took place. The three lived in Aurora, Illinois, until Copley was ten years old whereby the family moved to Coronado Island, California.[4]
Copley was sent to Phillips Andover and then Yale University by his adopted parents. He was drafted in the Second World War in the middle of his education at Yale, a decision negotiated by the school and the army.[5] Copley experimented with politics upon returning home from the war, working as a reporter for his father's newspaper.[6]
By 1946, Copley met and married Marjorie Doris Wead, the daughter of a test pilot for the Navy.[7] Doris's sister was married to John Ployardt, a Canadian-born animator and narrator at Walt Disney Studios.[8] Copley and Ployardt soon became friends and Ployardt began introducing Copley to painting and Surrealism.[9] The two traveled to Mexico and New York, discovering art, meeting the artists behind the works, and grasping Surrealist ideas. It was during this time that Copley and Ployardt decided to open a gallery in Los Angeles to exhibit Surrealist works.[10]
Galleries and foundation
Copley and Ployardt tracked down Man Ray while living in Los Angeles. Ray then introduced them to Marcel Duchamp in New York City. There, Duchamp opened many doors for them, introducing the two to New York dealers in Surrealism.[11] In 1948, Copley and Ployardt opened The Copley Galleries in Beverly Hills, displaying works by artists including René Magritte, Max Ernst, Yves Tanguy, Roberto Matta, Joseph Cornell, and Man Ray.[12] However, Los Angeles had not yet caught on to the Surrealist scene as other locations such as New York City had done, and the Copley Galleries faced hardships in gaining popularity and sales. Copley painted part-time during the gallery's running from the encouragement of friends Duchamp and Ernst and worked on painting full-time when the gallery closed after its first year.[13]
Copley moved to Paris in 1949–50, leaving behind his wife and two children to continue to paint.[14] During his time in Paris, he remained in Surrealist circles and continued to paint with a uniquely American style. Man Ray introduced him to Noma Rathner, whom he married in 1954. Man Ray took numerous portraits of the Copleys and served as best man at their wedding in Paris.[15] Their home in Longpont-sur-Orge in the outskirts of Paris became a central gathering place in the postwar era for a community of Surrealists to reunite after their dispersal during the war.[16]
The Copleys developed the William and Noma Copley Foundation, later known as the Cassandra Collection, in 1953 with the funds from his father's inheritance.[17] The board, in which Marcel Duchamp was also an adviser, gave small grants to artists and musicians. Upon Duchamp's death in 1968, the William and Noma Copley Foundation (later the Cassandra Foundation) gave Marcel Duchamp's last work, "Etant Donnés" to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where it is still on view.[18]
Collecting
From the time of the Copley Galleries until his death, Copley amassed a large collection of artworks with an emphasis on Surrealist works. The basis of his collection started when he began purchasing works that did not sell at the Copley Galleries.[19] From there, he amassed monumental works including Man Ray's "A l'Heure de l'Observatoire – Les Amoureux." Copley's collection was sold at auction in 1979 for $6.7 million, at the time the highest total for the auction of a single owner's collection in the United States.[20]
Artwork and exhibitions
Copley's first exhibition took place in Los Angeles in 1951 at Royer's Book Shop.[21] From there Copley participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions worldwide. In 1961, Copley was given an exhibition in Amsterdam by the Stedelijk Museum. The museum became the first public institution to add a Copley to their collection.[22]
Copley's paintings throughout the 1950s and 60s dealt with ironic and humorous images of stereotypical American symbols like the Western saloon, cowboys, and pin-up girls combined with flags.[23] His works during this period were often considered a combination of American and Mexican folk art and melded in well with the new young POP movement occurring in America when he returned to New York in the 1960s. Artists like Andy Warhol, Christo, Roy Lichtenstein and many others were frequent visitors at Copley's studio on Lower Broadway.[24] Copley believed that pop art had always interested him, claiming American pop art had much to do with "self-disgust" and "satire."[25]
Copley's works in the 1970s focused on his own understating of differences and challenges between men and women in romantic and sexual relationships. His works were now erotic, even pornographic. In 1974 he exhibited these new works at what was then the New York Cultural Center in Columbus Circle, New York in a show titled "CPLY X-Rated." These pieces were a sudden change from his previous romantic whimsical periods. The American public had difficulty with the material, for which Copley expressed, "Americans... don't know the difference between eroticism and pornography. Because eroticism has always existed in art. And pornography has never necessarily been in art."[30] Copley's experienced greater feedback in Europe, where the work was then well received. In conjunction with the New York Cultural Center Show, there was a special "CPLY X-Rated Poster and Catalog.
Later years
Copley moved to Roxbury, Connecticut in 1980, where he built a studio and spent time among friends.[31] In 1992 he moved full-time to Key West, Florida, due to health issues and lived with his sixth and final wife, Cynthia Gooch. He died on May 7, 1996, at age 77 from complications from a stroke he had suffered three weeks earlier.[32]
Mr. Copley's first five marriages ended in divorce. He had a son and two daughters.[33] His daughter, Claire S. Copley,[34] founded the short-lived, but influential Claire Copley Gallery, which exhibited important works by Michael Asher and Bas Jan Ader.[35]
2020 "William N. Copley: The Temptation of St. Anthony (Revisited)", Nino Mier, Los Angeles
2020 "William N. Copley: Drawings and Paintings 1966–1991", Nino Mier, Los Angeles
2018 "William N. Copley: The Coffin They Carry You Off In", Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), Miami
2018 "Publishing the Portable Museum: William N. Copley’s The Letter Edged in Black Press", Alden Projects, New York
2017 "William N. Copley: Women", Kasmin Gallery, New York (catalogue)
2016 "William N. Copley: The World According to CPLY", The Menil Collection, Houston (travelled to Fondazione Prada, Milan)
2016 "The World According to CPLY", The Menil Collection, Houston
2015 Galerie 1900-2000, Paris
2015 "William N. Copley: Drawings (1962 – 1973)", Kasmin Gallery, New York
2015 "William N. Copley: Paintings from 1960 – 1994", Showroom by Paul van Esch & Partners Art Advisory, Amsterdam
2014 "William N. Copley: Paintings and Mirrors", Michael Fuchs Galerie, Berlin
2013 "Finally We Laugh", Galerie Linn Lühn, Düsseldorf (catalogue)
2013 "William Copley & Big Fat Black Cock", Inc. Gang Bust, Venus Over Manhattan, New York (catalogue)
2012 "Patriotism of CPLY and All That", Kasmin Gallery, New York
2012 "William N. Copley: Works 1948 – 1983", Galerie Von Braunbehrens, Munich (catalogue)
2012 Museum Frieder Burda, Baden Baden
2011 "X-Rated," Sadie Coles HQ, London
2010 "CPLY: X-Rated," Paul Kasmin Gallery, New York
2004 Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain
1980–81 Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe, Germany
Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, The Netherlands (traveling retrospective)
Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris
Kunsthalle Bern
1979 "CPLY: Reflections on a Past Life," Institute of the Arts, Rice University, Houston
1974 "CPLY/X-RATED," New York Cultural Center, New York
Selected group exhibitions
1953
Americans in Paris, Galerie Arthur Craven, Paris, France
1956
XII Salon de Mai, Musee D’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France
Exposition Internationale de l’Art Actuel, Nagaoka Museum, Nagoaka, Japan
1957
Verzameling Urvater, (Urvater Collection), Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller, Otterlo, Netherlands; The Museum and Art Gallery, Leicester, England; City of York Gallery, York, England; The Tate Gallery, London, England
Picture Fair, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, England
1959
XV Salon de Mai, Musée D’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France
Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme, Galerie Daniel Cordier, Paris, France
The Maremont Collection at the Institute of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology at Crown Hall, Chicago
Picture Fair, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, England
1960
International Surrealist Exhibition, D’arcy Galleries, New York
1961
XVII Salon de Mai, Musée D’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France
Bewogen Bewgin (Moving Movement), Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam Holland; Rörelse I Konsten (Object in Motion) Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden; Bevagelse i kunsten (Movement in Art), Louisiana Museum, Humlbaek, Denmark
Contemporary Modern Paintings Drawings Collages Objets-Peinture Sculpture Property of The American Chess Foundation, Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York
Sculpture and Picture Fair, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, England
Surréalisme Et Précurseurs, Palais Graneville, Besançon, France
1962
Collage out of California, Pasadena Art Museum, Pasadena
Antagonismes 2: L’Objet, Musée D’Art Decoratifs, Palais du Louvre – Pavillon de Marsan, Pavillon de Marsan, Paris, France
Surrealismus: Phantastiche Maleri der Gegenwart, Künstlerhaus, Vienna, Austria
XVIII Salon de Mai, Musée D’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France
Esther-Robles Gallery, Los Angeles
Picture Fair, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, England
Piccola Biennale, Palazzo Papadopoli, Venice, Italy
1963
Pop Art USA, Oakland Museum of Art, Oakland, California
XIX Salon de Mai, Musée D’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France
18 Salon de Réalitiés Nouvelles, Musée Municipal D’Art Moderne, Paris, France
Surrealist Exhibition, Galerie Carpenter, Paris, France; New York
1964
Arte Fantastica, Museo de Castillo di San Giusto, Trieste, Italy
Selections from the L.M. Asher Collection, University Art Gallery, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque
New Directions in American Painting, Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham
Nieuwe Realisten, Haags Gemeentemuseum, The Hague, Netherlands
Le Surrealisme: Sources, Histoire, Affinities, Galerie Charpentier, Paris, France
Around Travel, P.V.I. Gallery, New York
May Twelfth Twelve Artists, Alexander Iolas Gallery, New York
100 American Drawings, Byron Gallery, New York
1965
The Maremont Collection, Washington Gallery of Modern Art, Washington, D.C.
Pop Art, Nouveau Réalisme, Etc., Palais Des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, Belgium
Surrealist Exhibition, Byron Gallery, New York
Visiting Artists at the Tamarind Lithography Workshop, Otis Art Institute, Los Angeles
Arena of Love, Dwan Gallery, Los Angeles
Whence Pop, Heckscher Museum of Art, Huntington, New York
The Box Show, Byron Gallery, New York
Exquisite Torsi, David Stuart Galleries, Los Angeles
Drawings, Alexander Iolas Gallery, New York
Recent Acquisitions of Painting and Sculpture, Museum of Modern Art, New York
1966
Hommage á Caissa: Exhibition for the Chess Foundation of the Duchamp Fund, Cordier & Ekstrom Gallery, New York
Dada Lever, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden
Surrealist Exhibition, University of California, Santa Barbara
Portraits: Peinture, Galerie Claude Bernard, Paris, France
25 Years of Art in San Diego, La Jolla Museum of Art, La Jolla, California
Birthday Party for George Washington, Henri Gallery, Alexandria, Virginia
26th Annual Exhibition by the Society for Contemporary American Art, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago
Limited Works by Important Artists, The Egg and The Eye, Los Angeles
Around the Automobile, Museum of Modern Art, New York; Arlington State College, Arlington; Cedar Rapids Art Center, Cedar Rapids, Iowa; Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire; B. Caroll Reece Memorial Museum, Johnson City, Tennessee; Bates College, Lewiston, Maine; Davison Art Center at Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut; Brooks Memorial Art Gallery, Memphis, Tennessee; The Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan
1967
Mixed Masters, University of St. Thomas, Houston
Angry Arts: Artists and Writers Protest Against the War in Vietnam, Associated American Artists, New York
Fifty American Artists of the Twentieth Century, North Shore Community Arts Center, Great Neck, New York
27th Annual Exhibition by the Society for Contemporary American Art, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago
1968
The Obsessive Image, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, England
Dada, Surrealism, and Their Heritage, Museum of Modern Art, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago
Language II, Dwan Gallery, New York
1969
Blocked Metaphors, Cordier & Ekstrom Gallery, New York
1970
Recent Acquisitions of Painting and Sculpture, Museum of Modern Art, New York
Copley, Brauner and Magritte, Louisianna Gallery, Houston
Box Top Art, Illinois State University, Bloomington
1972
Documenta 5, Kassel, Germany
1973
Erotic Art, The Art Center of the New School for Social Research, New York
1974
Seventy-First American Exhibition, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago
1975
Three Generations of the American Nude, New York Cultural Center, New York
University of Houston/Fine Art Center, Houston
1976
The William Seitz Memorial Exhibition, Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton
1977
Artist’s Renderings of Paintings, Pinoetca di Brera, Milan, Italy; Musée du Louvre, Paris France
The Dada / Surrealist Heritage, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts
1978
“Bad” Painting, The New Museum, New York
American Nude, Harold Reed Gallery, New York
Box Museum, Cooper Hewitt Museum, New York
1980
American Painting of the Sixties and Seventies: The Real, The Ideal, and the Fantastic, Whitney Museum of Art, New York; Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Montgomery, Alabama; Joslyn Art Museum; Omaha; Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, Florida; Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, Ohio; Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, Colorado Springs; The Sierra Nevada Museum of Art, Reno
The Figurative Tradition and the Whitney Museum of Art, Whitney Museum of Art, New York
1981
Westkunst, Museen Der Stadt Köln, Cologne, Germany
1982
Documenta 7, Kassel, Germany
The Erotic Impulse, Roger Litz Gallery, New York
1983
Looking at Women, Artemisia Gallery, Chicago, Illinois
Festival of the Arts, Muhlenberg College, Allentown, Pennsylvania
Contemporary Paintings from the Weatherspoon Art Gallery, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Greensboro, North Carolina
The Last Laugh, Southern Ohio Museum and Cultural Center, Portsmouth, Ohio
1984
Auto and Culture, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit
Paravents, Schloss Lorsfeld, Kerpen, Germany
1985 – 1986
Cinquante Ans de Dessins Americans: 1930-1980, Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux Arts, Paris, France; Städtische Galerie im Stadelschen Kunstinstitut; Frankfurt, Germany
Europa / Amerika: die Geschicte einer kunstlerischen Faszination seit 1940, Museum Ludwig, Germany
Line Drives, Gallery 53/Smithy Artworks, Cooperstown, New York
1987
The Amused Eye: A National Sampling of Humor in Art, The Evanston Art Center, Evanston, Illinois
1988
Gran Pavese, The Flag Project, Muhka Museum Voor Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium
Roger Brown, William Copley, Duncan Hannah, Gloria Luria Gallery, Miami
1989
Bilderstreit: Widerspruch, Einheit und Fragment in der Kunst seit 1960, Museum Ludwig in den Reinhallen der Kölner Messe, Cologne, Germany
1992
My Father’s House Has Many Mansions, Phyllis Kind Gallery, New York
1993
Darkness and Light: Twentieth-Century Works from Texas Collections, Blaffer Gallery, The Art Museum of Houston, Houston
1994
Old Glory: The American Flag in Contemporary Art, Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art, Cleveland
1995
Bunnies – A Group Show, Nolan / Eckman Gallery, New York
Drawing the Line: Reappraising Drawings Past and Present, Southhampton City Art Gallery, Southhampton, England; Manchester City Art Gallery, Manchester, England; Ferens Art Gallery, Hull, England; Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, England
1996
A Labor of Love, The New Museum, New York
Bilder – Aquarelle – Zeichnungen, Galerie Fred Jahn, Munich, Germany
Hommage a Copley, Galerie Fred Jahn, Munich, Germany
Think, Galerie Brigitte Ihsen, Cologne, Germany
Disegni Americani degli anni ottanta: 15 artisti, Galleria Milano, Milan, Italy
1997
Magie der Zahl in der Kunst des 20, Jahrhunderts, Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart, Germany
1998
Summer Group Show, Nolan / Eckman Gallery, New York
Then and Now and Later: Art at Yale Since 1945, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut
Imagined World, David Nolan Gallery, New York
1999
Bad-bad: That is a good excuse, Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, Baden-Baden, Germany
2000
Prints, Nolan / Eckman Gallery, New York
Im Gegenüber: Landschaften, Stilleben, Portraits, Galerie Von Braunbehrens, Munich, Germany
Sweet Dreams and Nightmares: Dada and Surrealism from the Rosalnd and Melvin Jacobs Collection, Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami, Miami
2001
Kunst Sammeln I: Werke Zeitgenössischer Kunst aus den Sammlungen von Cramm, Faklckenburg, Kalkmann, Kunstverein Bad Salzdetfurth, Bodenburg, Germany
Museum Unserer Wunsche, Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany
2003
Imagine: Selections from the Permanent Collection, Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami, Miami
2004
Funny Cuts: Cartoons und Comics in der Zeitgenössische Kunst, Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart, Germany
After Shelly Duval ’72 (Frogs on the High Line), Maccarone Gallery, New York
Andreas Slominski & William N. Copley – X-Rated, M.E. Collector’s Room, Berlin, Germany
ADAA Art Fair, Paul Kasmin Gallery, New York
2012
Interiors, Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York
2013
Re-View, Hauser and Wirth Gallery, London, England
Gang Bust: William N. Copley & Big Fat Black Cock. Inc, Venus Over Manhattan, New York
Masculine / Feminine, Michael Fuchs Galerie, Berlin, Germany
Building the Sukka, House of Gaga, Mexico City, Mexico
2014
Pop Abstraction, Fredericks and Fraser Gallery and Garth Greenan Gallery, New York
Purple States, Andrew Edlin Gallery, New York
Live and Let Die, Modern Art, London, England
Alexander the Great: The Iolas Gallery 1955 – 1987, Paul Kasmin Gallery, New York
Art Basel Miami Beach, Sadie Coles HQ, Miami
The Surrealist Bungalow, Linn Lühn, Düsseldorf, Germany
What Nerve!: Alternative Figures in American Art, 1960 to the Present, RISD Museum, Providence
2015
The Violent Crab, David Roberts Art Foundation, London, England
L’Impasse Ronsin, ADAA Art Fair, Paul Kasmin Gallery, New York
Viewer Discretion: Children of Bataille, Stux & Haller Gallery, New York
The Shadow is Taken, Algus Greenspon, New York
Saul Steinberg and William Copley: Take on the Life, Galerie Klauss Gerrit Friese, Berlin, Germany
Painting 2.0: Expressions in the Information Age; Museum Brandhorst, Munich, Germany; Mumok Museum, Vienna, Switzerland
2016
William Copley, Elma Talbot, Ina van Zyl, Galerie Onrust, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Olympia, Karma at Galerie Patrick Seguin, Paris, France
William N. Copley and His Mentor, Magritte, VENUS at FIAC, Gran Palais, Paris, France
The Revolutionary Sucide Mechanized Band, Rob Tufnell Gallery, Cologne, Germany
Impasse Ronsin, Paul Kasmin Gallery, New York
2017
Animal Farm, The Brant Foundation, Greenwich, Connecticut
Hope and Hazard: A Comedy of Eros, Hall Art Foundation, Reading, Vermont
Itinéraires, Musée D’Arts de Nantes, Nantes, France
Schlaf: Eine produktive Zeitverschwendung, Museen Böttcherstrasse, Paula Modersohn-Becker Museum, Bremen, Germany
An Incomplete History of Protest: Selections from the Whitney’s Collection, 1940 – 2017, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
America! America! How real is real?, Museum Frieder Burda, Baden-Baden, Germany
2018
Kinder Gentler Nation, Karma, New York
Mr. Natural; And Other Works from the Allan Frumkin Gallery (1952 – 1987), VENUS, New York
Nudes, Sadie Coles, London, England
Atlas, Fondazione Prada, Milan, Italy
Remember to React: 60 Years of Collecting, NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale, Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Trance, Aïshti Foundation, Jal El Dib, Lebanon
París pese a todo: Artistas extranheros, 1944-1968 (Lost, Loose and Loved: Foreign Artists in Paris, 1944 – 1968), Museo Nacional Centro de Arta Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain
2019
Fringe: William N. Copley, Jenny Watson & Saskia Pintelon, Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Deurle, Belgium
Recline: Portraiture & Henri Matisse Prints, McClain Gallery, Houston, Texas
2020
Valley of Gold: Southern California and the Phantasmagoric, Kasmin, New York
Karel Appel, André Butzler, William N. Copley, Ida Ekblad, Jeff Elrod, Walton Ford, Tursic & Mille, Galerie Max Hetzler, London, England
Helmut Newton 100 / William N. Copley 101 / Jonathan Monk 51, Galerie Klaus Gerrit Friese, Berlin, Germany
Impasse Ronsin. Murder, Love, and Art in the Heart of Paris, Museum Tinguely, Basel, Switzerland
2023
SEE YOURSELF AS LOVERS SEE YOU: William N. Copley | Dorothy Iannone, Sammlung Philara, Düsseldorf
The Curatorial Imagination of Walter Hopps, The Menil Collection, Houston, Texas
Pictures Girls Make: Portraitures, Blum & Poe, Los Angeles
2023–2024
Paraventi: Folding Screens from the 17th to 21st Centuries, Fondazione Prada, Milan
2024
Americans in Paris: Artists working in Postwar France, 1946–1962, The Grey Art Museum, New York University, New York
