“one of the great qualities of Hopkins’ new paintings, as i see them, is to have abandoned the particularly English problem of whether abstract art needs to be in some painterly relation to landscape. He has decided it would be better to avoid the term entirely. On the contrary it is through recollections of Dali, Miro, even Picasso, that the artist has remembered how the sun can sharpen the shadows, heat the landscape, and probably addle the brains. Are we madder or saner now? It makes no difference. In Hopkins’ new world, it is advisable to try both.”
–Brandon Taylor, 2012
Clyde Hopkins was born in East Sussex in 1946, moving with his family to Cumbria when he was eleven. He studied Fine Art at the University of Reading in the 1960s where he met his future wife, the painter, Marilyn Hallam. He exhibited work for over forty years, produced in studios in Greenwich, Deptford and St Leonards.
Solo exhibitions included the Serpentine Gallery London (1978 and 1986), the Acme Gallery London (1979), the Ikon Birmingham and Roch-dale Art Gallery (both 1985), Salisbury Art Centre (1988), Modern Times at the Castlefield Gallery Manchester (1989), Kunstverein Kirchzarten Germany (Kunst Europa 1991), Reg Vardy Arts Foundation Sunderland (1994), Atkinson Gallery Millfield School (1996), Vodka, a Stiff Breeze and Paranoia at the London Institute Gallery (1998), the Francis Graham Dixon Gallery London (1989, 1990, 1992, 1994, 1997) and Galeria Joan Prats New York (1990 and 1994). In 2012 he had two one-man shows – brown madder at Chelsea Futurespace, London, and Indian Yellow at the Merston Gallery, Chichester.
Group exhibitions at public venues throughout the UK and Europe include the Hayward, the Whitechapel, the Axiom, the Bede, MOMA Ox-ford, the Royal Academy, John Holden Manchester, Stephen Lawrence Greenwich, Hastings Museum and Art galleries. Many private galleries have also exhibited his work.
He was awarded the Mark Rothko Memorial Fellowship (USA) in 1980-81 and in 1999 the Lorne Award. His work is in public and private collec-tions in the UK and North America.
He taught in many art colleges and universities and in 1982 was appointed Head of Painting at Winchester School of Art. He moved to Chelsea College of Art in 1990 and was made an Emeritus Professor after leaving in 2006.