COPLANS, John (Rivers) 1920-2003

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born June 24, 1920, in London, England; died August 21, 2003, in New York, NY. Art critic, editor, curator, educator, photographer, and author. Coplans was best known as a founder of the influential Artforum magazine and for his more recent career as a photographer of quirky self-portraits. The son of a physician who was interested in art, Coplans fell naturally into the art world because he was surrounded by it as a boy, leading him to draw, paint, and take photographs at an early age. With the approach of World War II, he enlisted in the Scottish Rifles, seeing action in Africa and, later, Burma; he was eventually promoted to captain in the King's African Rifles. When he returned home, he studied art in London and earned money painting houses and renting out flats that he refurbished. He earned little from his own paintings, however, although he exhibited his works at the Royal Society of British Artists and the London Group during the early 1950s. Frustrated with the art scene in England, he moved to the United States and the excitement of the Pop Art movement. He settled in San Francisco, teaching for a time at the University of California at Berkeley, where he again became restless at the state of art in academia. Partnering with businessman John Irwin, he founded Artforum magazine, which became an important voice in the art world. During the 1960s he served as editor-at-large and then associate editor for the magazine, and from 1971 to 1976 he was the publication's editor, also writing a great deal of criticism during this time. Coplans' rising prominence in the art world as a result of his work for Artforum led to curator positions at the University of California and at the Pasadena Art Museum during the 1960s, as well as a position as director of the Akron Art Institute from 1978 to 1981. While at Akron, Coplans also founded the art magazine Dialog, which he published from 1978 to 1980. By 1980, however, he had become disillusioned about the art world again and what he felt was its growing preoccupation with money, so he moved to New York City to begin a new career as a photographer. Coplans' photographs are mostly self-portraits, but of a very different nature. He typically took close-up pictures of sections of his naked body, an approach that drew critical praise; his photos are currently exhibited at over fifty museums around the world and collected in his books A Self-Portrait, 1984-1997 (1997), A Body (2002), and Body Parts (2003). He was also the author of Serial Imagery (1968) and Don Judd (1971), and editor of Roy Lichtenstein (1972) and Weegee: Naked New York (1997). Although he suffered from macular degeneration that affected his vision in later years, he continued to take photographs and be involved in education, most recently as Koopman Distinguished Chair at the University of Hartford, beginning in 1991. The recipient of numerous awards and fellowships for his work, Coplans earned a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship in 1992, and in 2001 he was named Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of France.

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Chicago Tribune, August 23, 2003, section 2, p. 11.

Los Angeles Times, August 22, 2003, p. B13.

New York Times, August 22, 2003, p. A23.

Times (London, England), August 28, 2003.

Washington Post, August 25, 2003, p. B4.