1919 New York
1996 Key West/Florida

William N. Copley's work follows the tradition of Dada and Surrealism as well as Pop Art in America. Copley studied at the Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts from 1932 to 1936 and at Yale University from 1936 to 1938. After returning from the war, Copley opened his own gallery in Los Angeles in 1947 at the age of twenty eight. He succeeded in winning the main protagonists of Surrealism, namely the European artists René Magritte, Max Ernst, Yves Tanguy and Roberto Matta as well as the Americans Joseph Cornell and Man Ray, for his exhibitions. Copley himself only began painting at the end of the 1940s. He went to Paris together with Man Ray in 1951 and spent about thirteen years in Surrealist circles. The large number of works painted during these years are an ironical and humorous commentary on Surrealism. His return to New York in 1961 brought a change in his work. Around the mid 1960s his subjects increasingly turned to American myths, such as the Western saloon, or cowboys. He also began painting trivial motifs, such as pin-up girls, which he combined with symbols of the state, such as flags to create a subtly ironic message. Copley moved to Roxbury in Connecticut in 1980 and finally to Key West in Florida in 1992. Copley is considered a late Surrealist and a precursor of Pop Art. His art was widely recognised even during his life-time. His first large one-man exhibition in Los Angeles in 1951 was followed by others in New York, Paris, Milan, Venice and London. In 1961 the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam was the first public collection to buy one of the artist's paintings. Copley became known in Germany after an exhibition at the Galerie Springer in Berlin in 1968. The extent of his recognition in Germany is reflected in the invitations to exhibit at the documenta 5 and the documenta 7 in 1972 and 1982 and other shows. A touring exhibition in Bern, Paris, Amsterdam and Karlsruhe in 1980 was very successful. Most recently, his works have been shown in one-man exhibitions at the Kestner Gesellschaft, Hannover (1995), the Galerie Fred Jahn, Munich (1996-1997) and at the Ulm Museum (1997).

Copley

Copley

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