William Copley
1919–1996 · American Surrealist painter, gallerist and collector
William N. Copley (New York, 1919 – Key West, 1996), also known as CPLY, was an American painter linked to late Surrealism and regarded as a precursor of Pop art. Besides painting, he worked as a gallerist, collector, patron and publisher, so his support for Surrealism mattered as much as his own work.
Orphaned soon after birth, he was adopted by the newspaper owner Ira C. Copley. In Los Angeles, together with his friend John Ployardt, he opened The Copley Galleries in Beverly Hills in 1948, showing Magritte, Ernst, Tanguy, Matta, Cornell and Man Ray; the gallery struggled to find an audience. Settled in Paris from 1949, he moved in Surrealist circles, and his home in Longpont-sur-Orge became a meeting place for artists after the war. His paintings of the 1950s and 1960s ironically treated American icons such as the saloon, cowboys and pin-up girls, and in New York he was close to Warhol, Lichtenstein and Christo.
His legacy combines his own painting with the promotion of the art of his time. His Surrealist-focused collection was sold at auction in 1979, and the foundation he set up with his wife Noma gave Duchamp's last work, "Étant donnés", to the Philadelphia Museum of Art.