Walter Hopps

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Walter Hopps (Eagle Rock, California, 1932 - Los Angeles, March 20, 2005) was an American museum director and curator of contemporary art. His obituary in the Washington Post described him as a "sort of a gonzo museum director -- elusive, unpredictable, outlandish in his range, jagged in his vision, heedless of rules."^[1]

Hopps opened the Syndell Gallery in 1955, where his exhibitions included Action 1 and Action 2. In 1957 he founded the Ferus Gallery, Los Angeles in partnership with Ed Kienholz, leaving in 1962 to become the director of the Pasadena Museum of Art, now Norton Simon Museum, where he mounted the first museum retrospectives of Kurt Schwitters, Joseph Cornell and Marcel Duchamp, as well as the first overview of American Pop Art, New Painting of Common Objects. His unconventional administrative skills led to him being fired in 1967. ^[2] He then became the director of the Washington Gallery of Modern Art and was the U.S. commissioner of the 1972 Venice Biennale. In 1979 Hopps became a consultant to the Menil Foundation, becoming director in 1980. He was the director of the Menil Collection museum when it opened in 1987, but was eventually demoted to curator of 20th-century art.