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Claire Copley Gallery Records
2014.M.2
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Contributing Institution:
Special Collections
Title: Claire Copley Gallery records
Creator:
Claire Copley Gallery
Creator:
Allen, Terry, 1943-
Creator:
Copley, Claire
Creator:
Buren, Daniel
Creator:
Kosuth, Joseph
Creator:
Asher, Michael
Creator:
Leavitt, William
Identifier/Call Number: 2014.M.2
Physical Description:
9 Linear Feet
(13 boxes, 1 flatfile folder)
Date (inclusive): 1968-2011, bulk 1973-1977
Date (bulk): 1973-1977
Abstract: The records of one of the first Los Angeles galleries to show the work of conceptual artists such as Terry Allen, Michael
Asher, Daniel Buren, Joseph Kosuth, and William Leavitt. The collection includes artist files containing correspondence, ephemera,
and comprehensive photographic documentation of each exhibition.
Physical Location: Request access to the physical materials described in this inventory through the
catalog record for this collection. Click here for the
access policy .
Language of Material: Collection material is in English
Processed and cataloged by Annette Leddy in 2014.
Claire Copley Gallery papers, 1968-2011 (bulk 1973-1977), The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, 2014.M.2
http://hdl.handle.net/10020/cifa2014m2
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Open for use by qualified researchers.
The collection is arranged in three series: Series I. Gallery artists, 1969-2010; Series II. Other artists, 1969-1981; Series
III. Assorted, 1974-2011.
Acquired from Claire Copley in 2014.
Claire Copley Gallery was one of the first Los Angeles art galleries to show some twenty artists now considered pioneers of
Conceptual Art, whose works now form parts of major museum collections around the world.
The daughter of artist, dealer, and collector William Copley, Claire Copley founded her own gallery to showcase the work of
emergent international artists of her generation, including Americans Michael Asher, Terry Allen, Joseph Kosuth, Allen Ruppersberg,
and William Leavitt; Europeans Jan Dibbets, Bas Jan Ader, Ger Van Elk, and Daniel Buren; the Japanese artist On Kawara; and
Argentine David Lamelas. The installations, done in collaboration with the artists, were innovative and elegant, as was the
related ephemera. Though in operation for a relatively short duration, the gallery was a key venue in the formation of the
Los Angeles art scene in the 1960s and 1970s, along with the galleries of Eugenia Butler, Rolf Nelson, Nick Wilder, and Riko
Mizuno. It was one of three galleries profiled in the Pacific Standard Time exhibition at the Sam Francis Gallery of the Crossroads
School in 2011 titled
She Accepts the Proposition: Women Gallerists and the Redefinition of Art in Los Angeles, 1967-1978.
This collection relates to the William and Noma Copley Foundation records (accession no. 880403), in that Claire Copley is
the daughter of William Copley, and there is some overlap between the artists documented in the two archives.
Scope and Content of Collection
The collection, comprised of artist files, with a small amount of material relating to gallery management and accounting,
offers a comprehensive view of the work of important conceptual artists in the first stage of their careers. The artist files
often contain professional yet friendly correspondence with Claire Copley regarding details of exhibition installation and
planning, theoretical discussions of the artwork, and personal news. Project proposals, sketches, clippings of reviews, and
announcements are often present. There is comprehensive and expert photographic coverage of each exhibition, and of each artwork
in a given installation, generally in three formats: black and white photographs, negatives, and slides, with the occasional
color print. Clippings reveal the lack of understanding that the exhibitions met with, a highlight of which was a police action
against a Daniel Buren exhibition that extended to the gallery exterior, an event for which there is also photo-documentation
in the archive.
The work of artists who were not represented by the gallery but whose work comprised part of the gallery's inventory or simply
part of the gallery's broader art context, such as Ed Ruscha, John Baldessari, and Bruce Nauman, appears generally in slides
in alphabetical sequence within the binders of slides and negatives; however, Louise Lawler, Gilbert & George, Schley and
Adler, and Duane Zaloudek have mixed materials folders as well. Ken Feingold is the only artist who showed in the gallery
who has no material in the archive.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Compact discs
Slides (photographs)
Art galleries, Commercial -- California -- Los Angeles
Art, American -- California -- Los Angeles -- 20th century
Conceptual Art -- United States -- 20th century
Black-and-white photographs
Black-and-white negatives
Photographs, Original
Allen, Terry, 1943-
Asher, Michael
Buren, Daniel
Kosuth, Joseph
Leavitt, William