William N. Copley “The New York Years”

Kasmin (509 W 27th St.)

[Image: William N. Copley "I Am Awarded My Handbag and Declared a Professional" (1986) acrylic and chalk on linen, 82 x 118 in. © 2020 William N. Copley Estate / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.]

This event has ended.

William N. Copley The New York Years, a comprehensive look at the evolution of the artist’s painting during three pivotal decades in New York City.

The exhibition traces this central period through key paintings from multiple series and a corresponding presentation of photographic, publishing, and research materials drawn from the archives of the William N. Copley Estate. This is Kasmin’s sixth solo exhibition of the artist’s work since the gallery began representing the Estate in 2010.

“I’d been born in that town but didn’t remember it,” Copley said of New York in his memoir Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dealer. Copley’s decision to move to the city—when the artist was 44—marked a return to the American scene after twelve years living in France. Copley’s early career had been one of a self-taught outsider working in Paris, where, under the influence of Surrealism, Copley developed a unique personal iconography. This “private mythology,” as he would call it, explored sexual politics and his culturally repressive upbringing. Copley’s eccentric style and his humorous, amatory themes led to commercial success and exhibitions throughout Europe in the 1950s. Copley returned to the US in 1963, at a time when the Paris scene had grown quiet and New York was enjoying a period of explosive artistic activity.