id: 152370 accession number: 1985.214 share license status: Copyrighted url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1985.214 updated: 2024-03-26 01:59:55.412000 Feet Frontal, 1984. John Coplans (British, 1920–2003). Gelatin silver print; image: 57.4 x 43.8 cm (22 5/8 x 17 1/4 in.); paper: 60.7 x 50.7 cm (23 7/8 x 19 15/16 in.); matted: 76.2 x 61 cm (30 x 24 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Roger R. Smith 1985.214 © 1984 John Coplans title: Feet Frontal title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: 1984 creation date earliest: 1984 creation date latest: 1984 current location: creditline: Gift of Roger R. Smith copyright: © 1984 John Coplans --- culture: England, 20th century technique: gelatin silver print department: Photography collection: PH - British 20th Century type: Photograph find spot: catalogue raisonne: --- CREATORS * John Coplans (British, 1920–2003) - artist John Coplans British, 1920- Before launching into a full-time pursuit of photography at age 60, John Coplans (born in London) was a teacher, curator, and editor. He served in the British armed forces (1938-46), taking up painting in London and Paris in the years following. Immigrating to the United States in 1960, Coplans settled in San Francisco to teach at the University of California, Berkeley. Two years later, he founded the periodical Artforum and continued as its editor until 1980. He also worked as curator of the Pasadena Art Museum (1967-70) and then as director of the Akron Art Museum (1978-80), during which time he founded the midwestern art magazine Dialogue. Coplans moved to New York in 1980 and turned his attention to photography. Since 1984 he has worked on an extended series of self-portraits. Standing before a stark white background, he observes himself through a video monitor and works with an assistant who snaps Polaroid negatives at the artist's discretion. The photographs, varying in scale and largely excluding the face and head, suggest psychological and emotional states through gesture, abstract composition, and the symbolic connotations of the male nude subject. One-person exhibitions of Coplans's work have been held at the Art Institute of Chicago (1981, 1988), the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (1988), the Museum of Modern Art, New York (1988), the Musée de la Vieille Charité, Marseille (1989), the Frankfurter Kunstverein (1990), the Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam (1990), and the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford (1991). He has received numerous awards for both his photographs and his criticism, including the Frank Jewitt Mather Award of the College Art Association (1974), and fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (1969, 1985) and the National Endowment for the Arts (1975, 1980, 1986, 1992). His artist's books include A Body of Work (1987), Hand (1988), and Foot (1989). Coplans lives in New York. A.W. --- measurements: Image: 57.4 x 43.8 cm (22 5/8 x 17 1/4 in.); Paper: 60.7 x 50.7 cm (23 7/8 x 19 15/16 in.); Matted: 76.2 x 61 cm (30 x 24 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: proof print support materials: inscriptions: inscription: Written in pencil on verso: "John Coplans [signed] / FEET FRONTAL SP 228A Proof" translation: remark: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS --- PROVENANCE --- fun fact: digital description: wall description: --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS Cleveland Museum of Art, Tom E Hinson. Catalogue of Photography. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1996. page number: Reproduced: P. 131 url: --- IMAGES