Walter Hopps
| Walter Hopps | |
|---|---|
| Born |
May 3, 1932 Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Died | March 20, 2005 (aged 72) Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Occupation | Museum Director and Curator. |
Walter (Chico) Hopps (May 3, 1932 – March 20, 2005) was an American museum director and curator of contemporary art. His obituary in The Washington Post described him as a "sort of a gonzo museum director—elusive, unpredictable, outlandish in his range, jagged in his vision, heedless of rules."
Hopps was born into a family of prominent surgeons in Eagle Rock, Los Angeles, California. He was home-tutored until junior high school, when he entered the private Polytechnic School in Pasadena. From there he went to Eagle Rock High School. In 1950, Hopps enrolled at Stanford University; a year later he switched to UCLA to study microbiology. He also studied art history.
For his first exhibition, organized with his first wife, Shirley, in 1955, Hopps rented the merry-go-round at the Santa Monica Pier for $80, stretched tarp around the poles and hung nearly 100 paintings by 40 artists, including Sonia Gechtoff, Richard Diebenkorn, Mark Rothko, Clyfford Still, Paul Sarkisian, and Jay De Feo. All were for sale, none for more than $300; nothing sold. In 1952-1955, Hopps foundedSyndell Studio, where his exhibitions included Action 1 and Action 2.
In 1957, he founded the Ferus Gallery, Los Angeles in partnership with Ed Kienholz, leaving in 1962 to become the director of the Pasadena Museum of Art, now Norton Simon Museum, where he mounted the first museum retrospectives of Kurt Schwitters, Joseph Cornell and Marcel Duchamp, as well as the first overview of American Pop Art, New Painting of Common Objects. Hopps' most celebrated exhibition was the 1963 Duchamp retrospective, held at the Pasadena Art Museum in its original home on Los Robles Avenue. Hopps was in his first year as curator. He had been introduced to the French expatriate's iconoclastic work in the late 1940s, during a high school visit to the Hollywood home of art collectors Louise and Walter Arensberg. When his predecessor Thomas Leavitt departed the museum in 1964, Hopps was elevated to director; at 31, he was the youngest art museum director in America. His unconventional administrative skills led to him being fired in 1967. Notoriously unavailable when needed, his amused, bemused, and frustrated staff at the Pasadena Museum who created buttons reading "Walter Hopps will be here in 20 minutes." These buttons were recreated at the Corcoran Gallery during his tenure there. Leaving Pasadena, he became in 1967 the director of the Washington Gallery of Modern Art. He served as United States commissioner for the Sao Paolo Biennale in 1965 and the Venice Biennale in 1972.
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