‘Copley's art remains exciting and fresh today precisely because of its opposition to decorum, categorisation, and any kind of orthodoxy. It stands as a delightfully puckish and honest record of a unique, obsessive vision and life, as well as an emblem of art's essential, exciting freedom and strangeness.’
T. Kamps, ‘William N. Copley: The World According to CPLY’, in William N. Copley, exh.cat., Milan: Fondazione Prada, 2016, p. 30
‘And so – at the end of his life – the artist attenuated the anarchic role he had hitherto played for his own enjoyment and turned his art into a musical score, amplifying its political resonance in order to deliver a last blow to society's cultural and artistic armour. The circle was closed: pleasure and sensuality found a constituent and integrating function in society. They were affirmed as metaphors for dynamism in contrast to a fossilized dimension. No longer personal and private vehicles, the images became part of the world's living spirit, even as they remained seeds of a rebellion that today we consider a renewal.’
G. Celant, ‘Poetry + Painting’, in William N. Copley, exh.cat., Milan: Fondazione Prada, 2016, p. 22
‘I had never paid much attention to commedia dell'arte, but when I did I realized that it was where I had been all the time. It appealed to me because it is a very limited drama. In my commedia, it is always about being “taken in adultery”. The typical situation is the embracing couple: the man is saying “maintenant”, and she is saying, “pas ici”. I love Pirandello. He asks, what is reality? It‘s never the same for two people. Today there are so many court proceedings where everyone is describing something different. That‘s reality. No two people see a painting in the same way, and no one ever sees it the way the painter intended.’
W.N. Copley, ‘A Conversation with William Copley by Alan Jones’, in CPLY: William. N. Copley, exh.cat., New York: David Nolan Gallery, 1991, p. 9
‘By mixing writing and painting he was again stressing that his practice was one of “thinking in images” and appeared oriented toward emphasizing the “skin” of the painting without forgetting its poetic, inner content. He continued to look at and exalt woman's resplendent body, drawing attention to its outward appearance, but also revealed its fabulous and narrative character as a marvelous siren. It is this oscillation between word and vision, between reality and fantasy, that explains the scanty and sporadic attention to his work.’
G. Celant, ‘Poetry + Painting’, in William N. Copley, exh.cat., Milan: Fondazione Prada, 2016, p. 21
‘Copley went back to working with cutouts and silhouettes: a collage of images that, by utilizing different materials, allows the summation of a number of found fragments. It was plainly a process of de-subjectification, as if the artist wanted to detach himself from exclusively inner and personal motivations and indicate a common and all- embracing way of thinking, one that was not just individual but also collective and social. Instead of a surface receptive to single impulses, the whole was turned into an imaginary ensemble, often chaotic and confused, mutable and discontinuous, through which the artist sought to define general stereotypes belonging to everyone.’
G. Celant, ‘Poetry + Painting’, in William N. Copley, exh.cat., Milan: Fondazione Prada, 2016, p. 22
‘Copley began the “Invisible Women” paintings, in which the female body is not depicted, but implied through lingerie, swimwear, shoes, and mouths. These mixed-media works included collaged lace, women's shoes, garter belts, buckles and underwear. [...] The fetishistic series also embraced assemblage, a technique Copley frequently used to dimensionalise the flat surface of his paintings.’
C. Brandon, ‘Chronology 1919-1945’, in William N. Copley, exh.cat., Milan: Fondazione Prada, 2016, p. 236
‘I really tried to put a lot of my past paintings into these screens, almost one after another. And it got me to the point where I was able to decide that I had to go back to the cars because that's where I was able to say the most, you know. So the screens are sort of a reference to autobiography.’
W. N. Copley, Video interview conducted by Vincent Fremont, Don Munroe and Phyllis Kind at Phyllis Kind, New York. Andy Warhol‘s TV, episode 8, aired on Manhatten Cable, 1983, as reprinted in William N. Copley, exh.cat., Milan: Fondazione Prada, 2016, p. 238
‘Copley began working on Variations on a Theme by Francis Picabia (1978), a series of ten paintings first exhibited at Alexander Iolas Gallery in 1979 and then David Stuart Gallery in Los Angeles. These works included his variations on Picabia's La nuit espagnole (1922), formerly in Copley's collection. The paintings that he produced in response to Picabia's seminal painting included Nuit Puerto Ricain (1978), 31 Octobre (1978), Calcuuta by Day (1978), The Happy Hour (1978), and Bird's Bastard (1978). Misspelled words appeared in many of the paintings and they were riddled with holes around the painted targets, staying true to the original.’
C. Brandon, ‘Chronology 1919-1945’, in William N. Copley, exh.cat., Milan: Fondazione Prada, 2016, p. 219
‘It was the bicentennial in honour of America's 200th year. He called it “1776 and all That, the patriotism of Cply”. Patriotism to him was a very broad subject and included everything about America, including the kitchen sink. [...] Politics and satire were always a big part of his work. And sex, of course.’
B. Copley, ‘Billy Copley & Vincent Fremont 2012’, in The Patriotism of CPLY, exh.cat., New York: Paul Kasmin Gallery, 2012, n.p.
‘The complex oeuvre of William N. Copley grew from this modernist family tree of bad boys – descended from a mischievous, sexually provocative lineage that passed from Courbet to Balthus to Francis Picabia, to name a few of the key figures.’
A.M. Gingeras, ‘CPLY: Story of a “Bad Boy”’, in William N. Copley, exh.cat., Milan: Fondazione Prada, 2016, p. 165
‘The great quality of Copley's art is its absolute lack of moralism. In the present situation that is a notable achievement from which we should learn. In earlier ages there was a moralism in the content of art. [...] At present we are largely liberated from that form of moralism: it has been replaced by the moralism of style.’
R. Fuchs, Portrait des Künstlers als junder Händler, Bern-Berlin: Gachnang & Springer, 1990, as reprinted in William N. Copley, exh.cat., Milan: Fondazione Prada, 2016, p. 281
‘The singularity of Copley’s own incarnation of the bad boy role is best seen in the series of works he painted in 1972-1974 and exhibited under the title X-Rated. With titles borrowed from Hollywood movies such as National Velvet, Around the World in Eighty Days, Last Tango in Paris, and Happy Hooker, Copley defuses the shock of the pornographic image with comic levity and a pop cultural twist.’
A.M. Gingeras, ‘CPLY: Story of a “Bad Boy”’, in William N. Copley, exh.cat., Milan: Fondazione Prada, 2016, p. 166
‘A similarly colourful and punchy group of works derived from images taken from pornographic magazines. Compositionally true to their sources but rendered with a variety of Copley’s typical figurative distortions, the works show couples and individuals in explicitly sexual poses and embraces. The industrious self-absorption of the protagonists is undercut by all manner of playful or baroque patterns enjambed in incidental couches, wallpapers and bedspreads.’
T. Kamps, ‘William N. Copley: The World According to CPLY’, in William N. Copley, exh.cat., Milan: Fondazione Prada, 2016, p. 32
‘My life is a quest for the ridiculous image. The visual pun is the golden nugget that we seek. Joseph Cornell’s paperweight made from compressed paper; Man Ray's Pain peint – all his objects were visual puns. You are not asked, You are absolutely forced to make associations. Visual puns are mind-expanding, imagination-expanding. It’s all about heightening awareness. The viewer immediately has associations with experiences he has had that are equally ridiculous. Magritte is all about that. It’s a can't-miss kind of humour.’
W.N.Copley, ‘A Conversation with William Copley by Alan Jones’, in CPLY. William N. Copley, exh.cat., New York: David Nolan Gallery, 1991, p. 9
‘Copley’s interest in the American vernacular reached a spectacular crescendo in the Nouns series of paintings begun in 1970. These bold, brightly coloured canvases depict everyday objects – a bicycle, a boxing glove, a tuba – against a backdrop of geometric patterns suggesting striped wallpaper or parquet floors. The result of a self-imposed moratorium on painting the figure, these images are as anthropomorphic as any of Copley’s figurative works.’
T. Kamps, ‘William N. Copley: The World According to CPLY’, in William N. Copley, exh.cat., Milan: Fondazione Prada, 2016, p. 32
‘In France, Copley worked in near isolation to hone his painterly craft. Regularly pushing the limits of his technical and compositional skills, he developed his distinctive flat, figurative style, usually relying on strong black outlines, and his predilection for colourful patterns, lines, and shapes. He created a world combining the simplified clarity of children’s books and the symbolic punch of history painting.’
T. Kamps, ‘William N. Copley: The World According to CPLY’, in William N. Copley, exh.cat., Milan: Fondazione Prada, 2016, p. 30
‘Acrylic's faster drying time and ease of use complemented the work he was doing on paper with inks and charcoal. His drawing was now the driving source for everything he did, his paintings from this period were essentially large drawings, black lines with white impasto brush strokes on cotton canvas and his work progressed at a very fast pace with a constant stream of new ideas, generated by the drawing which he was now doing on a regular basis.’
B. Copley, ‘William N. Copley: The World According to CPLY’, in William N. Copley, exh.cat., Milan: Fondazione Prada, 2016, p. 31
‘Copley's newest paintings are based on American ballads of the “Sam Hall" and "Frankie and Johnny” type. Colours are loud, people empty-headed, and the technique is a maze of patterns, rather like a Vuillard à la Wild West.’
New York Herald Tribune-Washington Post, April 4, 1967, as reprinted in William N. Copley, exh.cat., Milan: Fondazione Prada, 2016, p. 144
‘I remember [Robert Service and the Yukon business] as a kid... A friend of mine used to read it to me as a kid. And those images stuck in my mind. It was Cliff Westermann who said to me once, “You should illustrate Robert W.Service.” And this sort of cooked in my mind for about a year. And kept coming back... I‘m sure that Cliff Westermann probably sees Service just about the way I do: a man with a remarkable sense of imagery and very limited intellect. Which is a perfect combination particularly for me, who, I‘m not really interested in intellectualism in either writing or painting.’
W. N. Copley, ‘Interview with William N. Copley conducted by Paul Cummings on January 30, 1968, for the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.’, as reprinted in William N. Copley, exh.cat., Milan: Fondazione Prada, 2016, p. 144
‘He has eyes only for women. He has colours only for them. To see them better, he closes his eyes to them. Before his listening eye rises the grey misery that modern times have imposed on beauty. He is surprised but not frightened. He does not sneer. On the contrary, he lends his colours to modern ugliness and does not despair of there finding a beauty spot, and by his adventure imposes silence on those who (do) sneer.’
M. Ernst, CPLY, exh.cat., New York: Alexander Iolas Gallery, 1963, as reprinted in William N. Copley, exh.cat., Milan: Fondazione Prada, 2016, p. 128
‘It is the lack of subtle refinements in the contours of his nudes, the featureless faces of his lovers, the disregard for all painterly tricks such as perspective, modelling, chiaroscuro that we enjoy like rebellious schoolboys. […] Umbrellas, hats, chairs, pianos, automobiles, flags, bidets, anything he may choose to show us as the theatrical props used by his characters is reduced to its simplest expression. Each is unmistakable and yet has a personality and significance like an apocryphal beast.’
R. Penrose, Copley, exh.cat., Amsterdam: Stedelijk Museum, 1966, p. 4
‘Copley assigns a role to his spectators who are like men watching another man being tattooed. Or he makes them Peeping Toms. They stand on tiptoe looking through the slats of Venetian blinds while all objects and people in the painting hold their breath. Or he sets up events that the spectator interrupts at a key moment. This is like the themes or subjects of certain well-known Pre-Raphaelite paintings.’
‘William Copley’, review of Iolas Gallery exhibition, in Art News, vol. 62, no. 8, December 1963, as reprinted in William N. Copley, exh.cat., Milan: Fondazione Prada, p. 129
‘Many paintings of women in various states of undress also included elaborate painted lace patterns or actual pieces of the material, devices that, Kay Heymer observes, allowed his work to supersede mere representation and to grant the viewer direct access to the artist’s obsession – his fantasies and fetishes.’
T. Kamps, 'William N. Copley: The World According to CPLY', in William N. Copley, exh.cat., Milan: Fondazione Prada, 2016, p. 31
‘Copley succeeds because he is a born manipulator of images, a painter who can use this equivocal material with originality and skill. Like all true artists, Copley identifies himself with his characters. He is the detective contemplating his own skull and crossbones, the stockbroker placed fully dressed in the cannibal’s stockpot, the boxer in the ring knocked out by a powerful blonde, the diplomat caught in bed with a ravishing spy, the policeman whose instruments are made of female flesh and blood, the builder who can fit together a mosaic of blondes so neatly that they cover the entire vault of Copley’s Sistine Chapel and finally, the inventor of the alphabet, the letters of which, composed of naked girls, spell THINK.’
R. Penrose, ‘William Nelson Copley’, in William N. Copley. Heed, Greed, Trust, Lust, exh.cat., Hannover: Kestner-Gesellschaft, 1995, p. 201
‘He started to contrast the clothed or naked figure and flag and continued by introducing, under the influence of René Magritte, an out-of-place motif, although one in cultural harmony with the subject, such as an umbrella, a woman’s bottom, an arena or a couple with a hammer and sickle, on the flags of various countries, painted and sewn between 1962 and 1967.’
G. Celant, ‘Poetry + Painting’, in William N. Copley, exh.cat., Milan: Fondazione Prada, 2016, p. 20
‘The visual vocabulary of Copley begins with the verb “I love” and from there it leads through colourful adjectives and staccato interjections to the great crossword puzzle in which words and images simmer together in a process of distillation. Copley, the cordon bleu in all questions of erotic chemistry, stirs into his pot the right ingredients of humour, black as the guillotine and the grand piano, red white and blue as the flag as underwear, a rainbow in fact that terminates in a pot de chambre. His insight into life, which goes beyond his enjoyment even of its absurdities, gives him the vision to express himself as a painter, that is a poet in visual imagery.’
R. Penrose, ‘William Nelson Copley’, in William N. Copley. Heed, Greed, Trust, Lust, exh.cat., Hannover: Kestner-Gesellschaft, 1995, p. 202
‘Copley’s work is, one might say, a single pictorial dedication to the moving powers of the erotic. The artist recounts stories of the "plaisirs" of lonely gentlemen in the streets of Paris or the talents of the beautiful blonde on the next street corner, all narrated in a tone shot through with irony and full of skeptical and laconic phrases. If you let the tone sink in you will realise that these images are constructed with much more subtlety and complexity than first meets the eye.’
C. Haenlein, 'Copley's French-American Connection’, in William N. Copley. Heed, Greed, Trust, Lust, exh.cat., Hannover: Kestner-Gesellschaft, 1999, p. 200
‘In CPLY’s painting, humour serves to compensate for the “serious” subjects of love, crime, punishment and death. It represents a ray of hope in a world full of both minor and major catastropes. CPLY’s painting is timeless, transparent and memorable. His surreal, good-humoured mentality enabled him to ignore the real consequences of death and other unhappy events as he sifted out their entertainment value.’
K. Heymer, ‘William N. Copley and Cply. In Search of the Painter in the Man’, in William N. Copley. True Confessions, exh.cat., Ulm: Ulmer Museum, 1997, p. 33
‘He is one of the few painters who can consciously use a naïve posterish technique without being affected. In this show [Copley: Peintures Recentes, Galerie Dragon, Paris, 1956] he gives full sway to the dreams and frustrations of a driver. He has the automobile pictured in a frame of intense colours and baroque shapes that give his canvases an almost Byzantine complexity. In a kaleidoscopic fervour, Mr. Copley has done the same to the car that Picasso did to the figure, picturing it from all angles at the same time as well as inside and underneath. In a humorous dream canvas, he shows goblin-size nudes (all blondes and feminine), repairing the car's ills in a garage fit for the most luxury-loving pasha.’
Y. Hagen, ‘Art and Artists’ column, in New York Herald Tribune, 1956, as reprinted in William N. Copley, exh.cat., Milan: Fondazione Prada, 2016, p. 89
‘The world according to CPLY is an antic, ribald, and candy-coloured place. Rendered in a panoply of inventive, self-taught representational styles, the paintings, drawings, and other works of William Nelson Copley overflow with outrageous imagery: circus-poster caricature, slapstick humour, and a surfeit of female nudes that puts Rubens to shame.’
T. Kamps, ‘William N. Copley: The World According to CPLY’, in William N. Copley, exh.cat., Milan: Fondazione Prada, 2016, p. 26
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