Panhandle Painting: A Retrospective
18th June - 28th August
This exhibition, looking back at the life and work of Clyde Hopkins, has been selected from paintings in the artist’s own collection. We would like to thank Marilyn Hallam for her generosity in loaning the work.
“You would expect a body of work, created over a span more than forty years, to display a pattern of development from early attempts, to the mature output where an artist’s ‘signature style’ has fully evolved and is then consolidated. But the paintings of Clyde Hopkins seem to resist this schematic interpretation. Those from the late seventies and early eighties are stylistically different to those produced in the late eighties. Another change occurs in the nineties and from 2008 or thereabouts the paintings seem to take on characteristics almost the opposite of those to be found in work from earlier in his career. So, instead of one signature style, there are several.
Each of these signature styles is fully resolved and sufficient, rather than marking an evolutionary stage in an ongoing narrative.”
Clyde Hopkins: A path through dark and light © David Sweet
Clyde Hopkins was born in East Sussex in 1946, moving with his family to Barrow-in-Furness when he was 11. He attended Barrow grammar school and then studied Fine Art at the University of Reading in the 1960’s where he met his future wife, the painter, Marilyn Hallam. He exhibited internationally for over forty years and taught in many art colleges and universities. In 1982 he was appointed Head of Painting at Winchester School of Art. He moved to Chelsea College of Art in 1990 and was made an Emeritus Professor after leaving in 2006.
As a painter and an educator Clyde had a profound and lasting influence on all those around him - an influence which continues to be assessed with his inclusion in the Tate Collection in 2020, and solo shows in Barrow, Deal, London and New York in 2022 and 2023. As the weight and significance of his work is brought to light through exhibition and publication, it becomes increasingly clear that his contribution to contemporary painting, and British abstraction in particular, was extraordinary.
A retrospective exhibition curated by Greg Rook.