Artist of the day: Artist of the Day, November 7, 2024: Dennis Hopper, an American photographer, painter, actor, movie director (#2151)

Thursday, November 7, 2024

Artist of the Day, November 7, 2024: Dennis Hopper, an American photographer, painter, actor, movie director (#2151)

Dennis Hopper (1936-2010) was born in Dodge City, Kansas, and died in Venice, California.

Though he is best known as the auteur of Easy Rider (1969) and as a prolific actor, with roles in some of the most iconic films of the 20th century, including Rebel Without a Cause (1955), Apocalypse Now (1979), and Blue Velvet (1986), Dennis Hopper was also an active visual artist. Influenced by a range of actors and artists, including James Dean, Marcel Duchamp, and Andy Warhol, he produced paintings, assemblages, and hundreds of photographs in concentrated periods throughout his career. In the early 1960s, he was among the key figures in L.A.’s avant-garde art scene. Photography was central to his practice; from 1961-67, Hopper shot in California, New York, Alabama, and Mexico, amassing a body of black-and-white photographs ranging from street scenes to portraits of icons of the age, establishing a vision that would shape his acclaimed directorial work.

Before his rise to Hollywood stardom, he captured the establishment–busting spirit of the 1960s in photographs that travel from Los Angeles to Harlem to Tijuana, and which portray iconic figures including Tina Turner, Andy Warhol, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Exhibited at Gagosian New York in 2013, The Lost Album in its entirety comprises over 400 black and white photographs taken between 1961—when his first wife Brooke Hayward gave him a Nikon camera for his birthday—and 1967.

Recent solo exhibitions include “American Pictures 1961–1967,” MAK Center, Los Angeles (2000); “International Traveling Retrospective Exhibition,” Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2001, traveled to Mak Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna); “Dennis Hopper and the New Hollywood,” Australian Centre For The Moving Image, Melbourne (2009); “Double Standard,” The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2010); “L.A. and Friends—Photographs from the 60's,” Art District, Le Royal Monceau, Paris (2011); “En el camino,” Museo Picasso Málaga, Spain (2013); “The Lost Album,” Royal Academy of Arts, London (2014); and “Part of Being an Artist: The Dennis Hopper Collection, Selected Artwork and Ephemera,” Hugh Hefner Exhibition Hall and Cinematic Arts Gallery, University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts, Los Angeles (2014). His photographs are included in the permanent collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; and Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh.

© 2024. All content on this blog is protected by international copyright laws All images are copyrighted © by Dennis Hopper or assignee. Apart from fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Act, the use of any image from this site is prohibited unless prior written permission is obtained. All images used for illustrative purposes only