With his distinctive creative approach —a symbiosis of American Pop Art and European Surrealism, combined with aesthetics reminiscent of comic art and “naive” painting —Copley challenges the conventional expectations and viewing habits of his audience to this day. The self-taught artist established his distinctive style in the 1950s and 1960s: a narrative visual language with contoured curved forms, bold colors, recurring motifs, and mostly faceless, rounded figures reminiscent of comic characters. A pioneering oeuvre emerges that vividly explores humor and eroticism, as well as autobiographical and political themes, and with which the artist makes a clear and unambiguous stand against contemporary abstract trends.


His unique position in figurative painting in both the United States and Europe earned him considerable success as early as in the 1960s. The work offered here was created at the height of Copley's career. In 1966, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam presented the first comprehensive retrospective of his work, and in 1972, Copley was exhibited in the documenta in Kassel. In the present work, Copley uses his characteristic dense, opulently patterned imagery and narrative undertones to create a depiction brimming with contrasts. He juxtaposes conservatism with lightheartedness, elegant evening attire with revelry and permissiveness, and a self-assured, combative pose with joyful cheerleading, thus reflecting the contrasts of the polarized American society of the late 1960s—between war and peace, progress, conservatism, and liberation—in a playful, iconic image.


In recent years in particular, the artist's work has been honored in several notable solo exhibitions at, among others, the Museum Frieder Burda in Baden-Baden, the Menil Collection in Houston - Copley's most comprehensive retrospective to date - at the Fondazione Prada in Milan (2016/17) and the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) in Miami (2018/19). [CH]