American painter William Copley (1919–1996), known by his alias CPLY, was a maverick storyteller, whose paintings, drawings, and installations defied the conventions of the art world. A connoisseur and benefactor, Copley forged connections with prominent 20th century artists, particularly Surrealists from Europe and Pop artists from America. In collaboration with Milan’s Prada Foundation, roughly 100 of Copley’s pieces, including paintings and works on paper, comprise the pioneering exhibition, William N. Copley: The World According to CPLY, marking the first extensive showcasing of his work in an American institution. This presentation, accompanied by a corresponding book, explores Copley’s artistic trajectory, from the 1950s to the 1990s, tracing his evolution of painterly techniques and his consistent exploration of line, color, design, symbolism, and wit.
In the early 1950s, while living in Paris, Copley honed his distinct and risqué figurative style, bucking the prevailing trends of abstraction. Developing a naive, unfiltered storytelling voice, he drew inspiration from Surrealist compositions, Mexican folk art, and American cartoons and silent films, as seen in his works from the 1950s and 1960s, created primarily in France. Throughout his career, Copley continuously revisited themes of nudity, automobiles, patriotism, and the playful poetry of Robert W. Service, also known as the “Bard of the Yukon.” Later pieces demonstrate Copley’s ongoing evolution as an artist, showcasing his sustained interest in political and psychosexual themes, surreal visual wordplay, and vaudevillian Americana. Diverse in style, these works also exhibit Copley’s keen awareness of contemporary artistic movements and his role as a bridge between the Surrealist and Pop realms.
www.ftn-books.com has some great Copley titles available.
