Unpaginated original artist's book containing 14 loose sheets with 12 offset color-printed reproductions of watercolor drawings. Oblong quarto (10 1/2 x 12 inches). Original cloth-backed blue paper boards portfolio with title label mounted to front, in original black slipcase. Very light edgewear and abrasions to portfolio, overall excellent. N.p.: William Nelson Copley, 1965. Hand-signed and numbered from a limited edition of 850.

William N. Copley, also known as CPLY (1919-1996), was an American painter, writer, gallerist, collector, and art entrepreneur working alongside the Surrealist and Pop Art movements. In 1948 Copley and his friend John Ployardt, an animator for Disney, opened The Copley Galleries in Beverly Hills, California. Earlier that year they'd become acquainted with Man Ray, who in turn had introduced the pair to Marcel Duchamp. By the time the gallery opened its doors, they were offering works by artists such as René Magritte, Max Ernst, Yves Tanguy, Roberto Matta, Joseph Cornell, and Man Ray. Copley painted part-time while running the gallery, at the encouragement of his friends Duchamp and Ernst, but when the gallery closed after only a year, he switched to painting full-time.

Copley left his wife and children to move to Paris in 1949, where he continued to paint and remained in Surrealist circles. He was introduced to collector Norma (Noma) Rathner, and at their wedding in 1954, Man Ray served as best man. Their home became a gathering place for the Surrealist community after the war, and they amassed a sizeable collection of mostly Surrealist artworks.

Copley's own artworks from the 1950s and 1960s often depicted ironic and humorous takes on American stereotypes such as cowboys and pin-up girls, while his works from the 1970s shifted to the erotic and even pornographic. He exhibited these works in a show titled "CPLY X-Rated". This artist's book from 1965 treads the line perfectly between his humorous and ironic works of the 60s and the more sexualized works of the 70s. The 12 images in this work provide a humorous take on Copley's life story, each accompanied by a brief caption with typography executed in a series of dots. A few of the captions read: "Against my better judgement I am broght [sic] into this world", "I lead a life of excess and deabauchery", "I meet the fabulou Yvette...a whore", and "I am taken in adultry [sic]". Each caption faces a reproduction of a watercolor by Copley, signed and dated in the original image. Almost every one of the drawings features nude, faceless women.

Scarce; as of November 2024, OCLC locates five copies of this artist's book in North American libraries.

Book ID: 53298

Price: $1,950.00