BUDD HOPKINS (1931-2011)

Evidence of Things Unseen.

Levis Fine Art is pleased to announce a solo exhibition of the paintings by Budd Hopkins which opens March 27th and will run through April 26th.   Hopkins' unique contribution to Modernism is significant, with his singular approach of using “two modes within the same work; one ordered, geometric, the other more expressive, painterly, the ratio varying, seldom equally balanced but balanced nonetheless in his version of Mondrian’s dynamic Equilibrium”. 

Having immersed himself in the New York art scene of the 1950s, Hopkins was influenced by friendships with fellow painters Robert Motherwell and Franz Kline.  A chance sighting of a U.F.O. in 1963 was a seminal event for Hopkins, and for the next 50 years, his artistic life reflected the duality of things seen and unseen, the actual and abstract. 

As early as 1958, when Hopkins was but 27 years old, Irving Sandler invited Hopkins to participate in “Twelve Americans, 30 and Under”.  Hopkins trajectory was strong.  Following Hopkins’ 1963 solo show at Poindexter Gallery, New York Times critic Brian O’Doherty would speak of Hopkins style as “leading post-Abstract Expressionist painting toward a more vital and viable future”.   

Works by Hopkins were included in four Whitney Annual Exhibitions, and he was the subject of numerous critically acclaimed solo and group exhibitions throughout the 1960s and 1970s.   The Guggenheim Museum, The Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, The San Francisco Museum of Art and 25 others acquired his art.   Eschewing what he called “Absolute Symmetry,” the progression of his artistic practice was summed up in 1985 by Michael Brenson, then critic for the New York Times, “In the course of trying to re-establish the broadest meaning of the abstract geometry that has fascinated so many 20th-century artists, Hopkins makes us consider that ritual, worship, cruelty and superstition have always been inseparable.”

A catalog published to coincide with the exhibition features an essay by Art in America contributing editor Lilly Wei that sheds light on the artist’s exploration of the known and unknown.