Early Life, Family and Training

John Coplans was born in London in 1920. His early years were shaped by a sense of movement, as his family lived in a state of flux between London and South Africa from 1924 to 1927. His father, Joseph Moses Coplans, was a medical doctor who possessed many scientific and artistic talents. This combination of interests in the household meant that the boundaries between science and art were often blurred during his upbringing.

At the age of eighteen, John Coplans was commissioned into the Royal Air Force as an Acting Pilot Officer. This period of military service interrupted his early explorations of visual form. After his time in the service, he sought to formalize his creative interests through study. He enrolled in Goldsmiths College and Chelsea College of Arts to study art, attempting to find a path that suited his specific sensibilities.

Career as a Curator and Writer

After moving to the United States in 1960, his focus shifted toward the mechanics of the art world. He became part of the founding editorial staff of Artforum, working with the publication from 1962 to 1971. His involvement with the magazine deepened in later years when he took on the role of Editor-in-Chief, a position he held from 1972 to 1977.

His work extended into the physical spaces of museums and institutions. He spent time in California, working as a curator at the Pasadena Art Museum in Pasadena. Later, his professional path led him to Akron, Ohio, where he served as the director at the Akron Art Institute. These roles placed him at the center of institutional decision-making and the curation of contemporary movements.

Artistic Style and Photographic Works

In the early 1980s, Coplans shifted his focus toward a photography practice that centered on the human form. He worked with large-format black-and-white photography to capture close-up, somewhat abstract views of his own aging body. These images, produced between 1984 and 2002, often focused on the textures of skin, the folds of flesh, and the physical realities of growing older. He frequently chose to leave his head out of the frame. By removing the face, he stripped away the specific markers of his current identity, turning the body into a medium for exploring form and the process of physical decline.

His approach was a study of the body as a landscape. The photographs often functioned as a documentary of the human condition, focusing on details like sagging flesh or creased skin. This method turned the aging body into a subject of exploration, treating the physical self as a primary, impersonal object. The work moved away from traditional portraiture to focus on the geometry and texture of the body itself.

Key Works and Collections

His paintings often focus on the quiet, unadorned moments of domestic life. One such work, Marcella and Son, was featured on AllPaintingsStore.com and is held in the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art. This piece captures a sense of familial connection through a precise, steady gaze. It is a study of intimacy that avoids the need for grand gestures, relying instead on the weight of the presence between the subjects.

In his later years, the focus shifted toward the physical reality of the body. He produced large-format, black-and-white photographic self-portraits that examined the textures of aging. These works often removed the face to focus on the landscape of skin, folds, and hair. The Tate collection holds Self-Portrait (Frieze No. 2, Four Panels), a work that treats the human form with the same scrutiny one might give to a piece of sculpture or a natural object. These images do not shy away from the reality of physical change, presenting the body as a site of constant, quiet transformation.

• Self portrait (undated)

Later Years and Death

In his later years, Coplans lived in the United States, having moved there in 1960. He was married to the photographer Amanda Means. His focus remained on the physical reality of the body, often stripping away the face to focus on the textures of skin and the marks of aging. These photographic studies became a primary way for him to record the passage of time through the lens of his own form.

He passed away on 21 August 2003 in New York City. His death marked the end of a long life spent moving between the roles of artist, curator, and writer. He left behind a body of work that continued to examine the human form in its most direct and unadorned states.