Dennis Hopper: Art Collector

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It has been over a week since Dennis Hopper’s passing and when it comes to retrospectives, the man has had no shortage of eulogies. He is remembered for his acting, his work as a director (Easy Rider, 1969), and for his tumultuous relationship with women and drugs. His work as a photographer is even receiving a fair amount of coverage. Yet, it was Hopper’s dedication to art and his diligent work as an art collector that has received considerably less attention and is well-worth a closer look.

Dennis Hopper in The Cool School

I first realized Hopper’s involvement with the arts when I saw the movie The Cool School (which, for you Netflixers out there, is available to Watch Instantly). His commentary in the film describes the burgeoning L.A. art scene of the sixties and seventies. In terms of a fully realized art market, the movie leads the viewer to believe that it was, in fact, the wild west of art.

When Hopper’s career hit a snag in the early 60’s, he started to associate with the myriad of artists, critics and renegade curators living and working in Los Angles at that time. These included figures such as Warhol, Duchamp and various members of the Ferus Art Gallery. The artists, who included the likes of John Altoon, Ed Moses, Sonia Gechtoff, Ed Keinholtz and Robert Irwin – would almost all go on to define the LA art market.

As a collector, he was a pioneer of collecting and supporting west coast artists. The following is an excerpt from an interview in CigarAficionado that explains his checkered involvement with collecting. ”He bought one of my first paintings, Standard Station,” says Ruscha. “He was an early collector, one of the very few people in Hollywood who bought modern art.” His turbulent personal life led to the dissemination of his contemporary art collection and in addition to that early Ruscha he lost other important early contemporary artworks. Hopper laments in one interview that “I had one of the earliest Pop Art collections: Jasper Johns, Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, Frank Stella. Today it would be worth $100 million but most of it has ended up in German museums.”

An exhibition was eventually planned and since Hopper’s death, art dealer Jeffrey Deitch rushed to bring the show to LA MOCA. Now, with a show curated by Julian Schnabel, the public can now see and appreciate not only Hopper’s own merit as a photographer and artist, but the time and money he invested early-on in the work of other of the art world’s luminaries. It was well before his passing, however, that Hopper had worked hard to build and house his collection in Venice, CA.

Dennis Hopper with Ferus Gallery curator Walter Hopps