When John Coplans began photographing his aging body after he turned
60, he embarked on a documentation of age that is alternately humorous,
reflective, and disquieting in the closeness of its observation. Seeing
himself as an actor, Coplans examines various body parts closely, often
quoting art historical postures with his sagging figure. Self-Portrait, Three Times is exemplary of his scrutinization of idealized expectations of the body and the self.
Born
in London in 1920, John Coplans was educated in South Africa and
England. After immigrating to the United States in 1960, he began
teaching at the University of California at Berkeley. Coplans was the
founding editor of Artforum magazine. Coplans worked as the
senior curator of the Pasadena Art Museum from 1967 to 1970 and as the
director of the Akron Art Museum in 1978. He has published numerous
articles of art criticism, and his books include Weegee: Tater und Opfer (1978), Ellsworth Kelly (1973), Roy Lichtenstein (1972), Andy Warhol (1970), Serial Imagery (1968), and Cezanne Watercolors
(1967). Coplan’s extremely close-up nude self-portraits have been
exhibited at numerous institutions worldwide. He received the Frank
Jewitt Mather Award of the College Art Association for services to art
criticism in 1974; John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
Fellowships in 1969 and 1985; and National Endowment for the Arts
Fellowships in 1975, 1980, 1986, and 1992.
