Copley

The catalog features more than eighty works by the American, who as gallery owner, artist, author, and publisher operated as an important mediator between the Surrealists and the Pop Art movement since the mid-1940s and was one of the most unconventional personalities in the art scene. Tying in with the tradition of Dada, Surrealism, and American Pop Art, William N. Copley’s paintings are an ironic examination of the erotic game played by men and women in all of its facets. The artist developed his unconventional style very early on, one which manifests itself first and foremost in the two main protagonists in his pictorial narratives: a shapely blonde in rosy nakedness chances upon a small man in a suit, armed with the symbols of venerability and sublime sex—an umbrella and a bowler. His oeuvre is an absolute pictorial homage to the motive forces of Eros. Yet Copley does not only rely on naïvely pretty pictures, but develops substance in terms of content that does not open up to the viewer until he or she takes a closer look and unlocks the connection between the depiction and the picture’s title.