William CopleyVintage Galerie Alexandre Iolas Ballads Poster William Copley CPLY Mourlot Litho, c. 20th century

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Ballads Galerie Alexandre Iolas Poster by William N. Copley (CPLY)
New-York, Geneve, Milan, Paris
196, Boulevard Saint-Germain

William Nelson Copley … Read more Ballads Galerie Alexandre Iolas Poster by William N. Copley (CPLY)
New-York, Geneve, Milan, Paris
196, Boulevard Saint-Germain

William Nelson Copley (January 24, 1919 – May 7, 1996) also known as CPLY, was an American painter, writer, gallerist, collector, patron, publisher and art entrepreneur. His works as an artist have been classified as late Surrealist and precursory to Pop Art.
William N. Copley was born in New York City in 1919 to parents John and Flora Lodwell; they died shortly after in the 1919 Spanish Flu epidemic. Copley was adopted in 1921 by Ira C. Copley, the owner of sixteen newspaper companies in Chicago and San Diego. Copley was ten years old whereby the family moved to Coronado Island, California.
Copley was sent to Phillips Andover and then Yale University by his adopted parents. He was drafted in the Second World War in the middle of his education at Yale, a decision negotiated by the school and the army. Copley experimented with politics upon returning home from the war, working as a reporter for his father's newspaper.
By 1946, Copley met and married Marjorie Doris Wead, the daughter of a test pilot for the Navy. Doris's sister was married to John Ployardt, a Canadian-born animator and narrator at Walt Disney Studios. Copley and Ployardt soon became friends and Ployardt began introducing Copley to painting and Surrealism. The two traveled to Mexico and New York, discovering art, meeting the artists behind the works, and grasping Surrealist ideas. It was during this time that Copley and Ployardt decided to open a gallery in Los Angeles to exhibit Surrealist works.
Copley and Ployardt tracked down Man Ray while living in Los Angeles. Ray then introduced them to Marcel Duchamp in New York City. There, Duchamp opened many doors for them, introducing the two to New York dealers in Surrealism. In 1948, Copley and Ployardt opened The Copley Galleries in Beverly Hills, displaying works by artists including René Magritte, Max Ernst, Yves Tanguy, Roberto Matta, Joseph Cornell, and Man Ray. Copley moved to Paris in 1949–50, leaving behind his wife and two children to continue to paint. During his time in Paris, he remained in Surrealist circles and continued to paint with a uniquely American style.
Copley's first exhibition took place in Los Angeles in 1951 at Royer's Book Shop. From there Copley participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions worldwide. In 1961, Copley was given an exhibition in Amsterdam by the Stedelijk Museum. The museum became the first public institution to add a Copley to their collection.
Copley's paintings throughout the 1950s and 60s dealt with ironic and humorous images of stereotypical American symbols like the Western saloon, cowboys, and pin-up girls combined with flags. His works during this period were often considered a combination of American and Mexican folk art and melded in well with the new young POP movement occurring in America when he returned to New York in the 1960s. Artists like Andy Warhol, Christo, Roy Lichtenstein and many others were frequent visitors at Copley's studio on Lower Broadway. Copley believed that pop art had always interested him, claiming American pop art had much to do with "self-disgust" and "satire."
In 1967, after a divorce with his second wife, Noma, Copley and new friend Dmitri Petrov decided to publish portfolios of 20th-century artist collaborations with the abbreviation SMS (for "Shit Must Stop"). Copley's Upper West Side loft became a meeting place for performers, artists, curators, and composers to work together on the open-ended collective. The SMS portfolio contained six volumes, each of which were shipped out from the artists to subscribers. The works included came from artists both well-renowned and obscure, including Marcel Duchamp, Roy Lichtenstein, Man Ray, Christo, Richard Hamilton, Claes Oldenburg, John Cage, Terry Riley, La Monte Young, Dick Higgins, Ronnie Landfield, Bruce Nauman, Meret Oppenheim, Neil Jenney, Yoko Ono and others.
Copley's works in the 1970s focused on his own understating of differences and challenges between men and women in romantic and sexual relationships. His works were now erotic, even pornographic. In 1974 he exhibited these new works at what was then the New York Cultural Center in Columbus Circle, New York in a show titled "CPLY X-Rated." These pieces were a sudden change from his previous romantic whimsical periods. The American public had difficulty with the material, for which Copley expressed, "Americans... don't know the difference between eroticism and pornography. Because eroticism has always existed in art. And pornography has never necessarily been in art." Copley's experienced greater feedback in Europe, where the work was then well received. In conjunction with the New York Cultural Center Show, there was a special "CPLY X-Rated Poster and Catalog.
Copley moved to Roxbury, Connecticut in 1980, where he built a studio and spent time among friends. In 1992 he moved full-time to Key West, Florida, due to health issues and lived with his sixth and final wife, Cynthia Gooch. He died on May 7, 1996, at age 77 from complications from a stroke he had suffered three weeks earlier.

Selected solo exhibitions
2022 "Works on Paper", Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin
2022 Sadie Coles HQ, London
2020 "The Ballad of William N. Copley", Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin
2020 "The New York Years", Kasmin, New York
2020 "William N. Copley: The Temptation of St. Anthony", Nino Mier
2020 "William N. Copley: Drawings and Paintings 1966–1991", Nino Mier,
2018 "William N. Copley: The Coffin They Carry You Off In", Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), Miami
2018 "Publishing the Portable Museum: William N. Copley’s The Letter Edged in Black Press", Alden Projects, New York
2017 "William N. Copley: Women", Kasmin Gallery, New York (catalogue)
2016 "William N. Copley: The World According to CPLY", The Menil Collection, Houston (travelled to Fondazione Prada, Milan)
2016 "The World According to CPLY", The Menil Collection, Houston
2015 Galerie 1900-2000, Paris
2015 "William N. Copley: Drawings (1962 – 1973)", Kasmin Gallery, New York
2015 "William N. Copley: Paintings from 1960 – 1994", Showroom by Paul van Esch & Partners Art Advisory, Amsterdam
2014 "William N. Copley: Paintings and Mirrors", Michael Fuchs Galerie, Berlin
2013 "Finally We Laugh", Galerie Linn Lühn, Düsseldorf (catalogue)
2013 "William Copley & Big Fat Black Cock", Inc. Gang Bust, Venus Over Manhattan, New York (catalogue)
2012 "Patriotism of CPLY and All That", Kasmin Gallery, New York
2012 "William N. Copley: Works 1948 – 1983", Galerie Von Braunbehrens, Munich (catalogue)
2012 Museum Frieder Burda, Baden Baden
2011 "X-Rated," Sadie Coles HQ, London
2010 "CPLY: X-Rated," Paul Kasmin Gallery, New York
2004 Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain
1980–81 Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe, Germany
Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, The Netherlands
Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris
1979 "CPLY: Reflections on a Past Life," Institute of the Arts, Rice University, Houston
1974 "CPLY/X-RATED," New York Cultural Center, New York

Alexander Iolas (Greek: Αλέξανδρος Ιόλας) (1908 – J1987) was an Egyptian-born Greek-American art gallerist and significant collector of classical and modern art works, who advanced the careers of Rene Magritte, Andy Warhol and many other artists. He established the modern model of the global art business, operating successful galleries in Paris, Geneva, Milan and New York. He started by exhibiting works of European surrealist artists, such as René Magritte, Max Ernst, Giorgio de Chirico, and Victor Brauner. There, in 1952, Iolas also presented Andy Warhol's first exhibition. He later collaborated with the New Realists (Niki de Saint Phalle, Jean Tinguely, Martial Raysse, et al.), with Arte Povera artists (Jannis Kounellis, Pino Pascali et al.) and many others. In 1954, the gallery expanded and was renamed Alexander Iolas, Inc. See less