Alan John Hopkins
Alan John Hopkins
1930 - 1974
Alan John Hopkins was born in Hampstead during April 1930 and died in the Royal Marsden Hospital (Sutton, Surry) of lymphoma, during August 1974, following a long illness.
His brother Stuart Edward Hopkins gave us the following information:
"Alan was educated, in the arts and crafts tradition, at the Harrow School of Art (Harrow, Middlesex) and subsequently at the Slade School of Fine Art (Bloomsbury, London). His early paintings were, to some extent, the expression of an intense sense of injustice prevalent in some aspects of contemporary life. His general outlook was informed by clearly articulated radical political concepts. If my recollection is correct, some of Alan’s early paintings were critically reviewed, in the New Statesman and Nation (as it then was), by John Peter Berger. His later works, including collage, became almost exclusively abstract, some of which were most attractively executed.
Alan had paintings selected occasionally for hanging at the annual Summer Exhibition of the Royal Academy of Arts, Burlington House. Apart from his early paintings, both realist and abstract, he also produced sculptures, lithographs and, at the time of his death, he was actively engaged in the restoration and the production of new picture frames for London art dealers. Alan also taught drawing at north London technical colleges."
Hopkins produced a number of works during the 1950s, among them 'Toilers of the Field' (Southwark Art Collection). During the 1960s, Hopkins' work became much more abstract, yet he retains the muted colour palette synonymous with British painters of immediate Post War decades. Paintings such as 'Abstract Shapes Over Newspapers' (1961) and 'Interior Scene with Red Tablecloth' (both sold through Bonhams, 2007 and 2004 respectively) purposely incorporate muted colour tones of brown and grey, making Hopkins part of the movement in art produced by the younger generation of artists who began to emerge during socially difficult years of post-war "austerity Britain".
His brother Stuart Edward Hopkins gave us the following information:
"Alan was educated, in the arts and crafts tradition, at the Harrow School of Art (Harrow, Middlesex) and subsequently at the Slade School of Fine Art (Bloomsbury, London). His early paintings were, to some extent, the expression of an intense sense of injustice prevalent in some aspects of contemporary life. His general outlook was informed by clearly articulated radical political concepts. If my recollection is correct, some of Alan’s early paintings were critically reviewed, in the New Statesman and Nation (as it then was), by John Peter Berger. His later works, including collage, became almost exclusively abstract, some of which were most attractively executed.
Alan had paintings selected occasionally for hanging at the annual Summer Exhibition of the Royal Academy of Arts, Burlington House. Apart from his early paintings, both realist and abstract, he also produced sculptures, lithographs and, at the time of his death, he was actively engaged in the restoration and the production of new picture frames for London art dealers. Alan also taught drawing at north London technical colleges."
Hopkins produced a number of works during the 1950s, among them 'Toilers of the Field' (Southwark Art Collection). During the 1960s, Hopkins' work became much more abstract, yet he retains the muted colour palette synonymous with British painters of immediate Post War decades. Paintings such as 'Abstract Shapes Over Newspapers' (1961) and 'Interior Scene with Red Tablecloth' (both sold through Bonhams, 2007 and 2004 respectively) purposely incorporate muted colour tones of brown and grey, making Hopkins part of the movement in art produced by the younger generation of artists who began to emerge during socially difficult years of post-war "austerity Britain".