Wednesday, May 1, 1996
Experience of California art scene of 1950s adds unique twist to teachingsBy Mimi Yiu
Daily Bruin Contributor
Henry Hopkins may have devoted his life to art, but he would never disdain those who merely dabble in it. That respect is why Hopkins, director of UCLA's Armand Hammer Museum of Art and Cultural Center, is teaching a series of Saturday lectures aimed at educating a general audience on art history.
"When I was a grad student at UCLA in the late 1950s, I taught several courses in art history and art appreciation through the Extension program," Hopkins explains. "There were both formal and informal classes just any 15 people who wanted to learn about art and important collectors of modern art grew out of that program."
Hopkins hopes to generate that same lifelong affinity for art with his current classes at the Hammer Museum. This art history program, established two years ago, follows the development of Western art to the present and repeats cyclically. The series will carry through into the summer with lectures on modern art.
"It's like painting the Golden Gate Bridge," Hopkins jokes. "You paint it up one end, then you cross over and paint it down to the other end."
The metaphor could just as easily apply to Hopkins himself. Educated at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and UCLA, Hopkins has run the gamut of art-related occupations artist, educator, critic, curator and administrator.
Hopkins's impressive art credentials began with a bachelor in art education from Chicago. His career seemed to be momentarily derailed when he was drafted in the army in 1952, the year that he graduated. The two years that he served as an army photographer in Europe, however, proved to be an artistic stimulant.
"It was a fortuitous assignment because I got to see so much art, so much history there in Europe, even though there was all that devastation," Hopkins says. "As a result, I became much more involved in art history."
After his stint in Europe, Hopkins continued his studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago obtaining a master's degree in art education there before coming to UCLA for his doctorate. Working under Fred Wright, Hopkins specialized in 20th-century art at a time when hardly anyone took a scholarly interest in the subject.
Hopkins not only studied modern art, but also created it. As an accomplished painter who exhibited in Los Angeles, he was caught up in the fast-moving art scene of the time.
"When I was a graduate student in the late 1950s, there was a real sense of excitement in L.A. and San Francisco," Hopkins remembers. "Artists here were moving in an exciting, new direction. It was like a baby boom in art."
Hopkins's true passion, however, lay in art history and museology. Although Hopkins enjoyed teaching at UCLA, he decided to pursue a career in museums instead.
"In a museum, you deal with real objects, not slides, and living artists, not art history textbooks," he explains.
Hopkins worked at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art for seven years, eventually becoming head curator of exhibitions and publications. He left in 1968 to take up the position of director at the Fort Worth Art Center Museum, which focuses on contemporary art. In 1974, Hopkins became director of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
After working as director of the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation, a post that he assumed in 1986, Hopkins returned to UCLA and joined the Department of Art in 1991.
"At that point in my career, I had been working for thirty years in the museum world," he points out. "I wanted to go back to teaching, and I felt that I would have something valuable to impart to my students. After I arrived at UCLA, however, there was a change-over in the department, and because I had administrative experience, I became the chair."
His administrative duties left him little time to teach. Then in 1994, Hopkins was appointed director of the Armand Hammer Museum. The lecture series that he is offering is a way for him to keep in touch with art education before his return to teaching next year.
Hopkins believes that educational opportunities are integral components of a museum's agenda. The Hammer Museum attempts to reach out to the community with a variety of learning experiences.
"The role that we've picked for ourselves is that of cultural center," Hopkins says. "It's an avenue that has not really been explored by other museums in the city. We want to offer a diverse range of programs from weekend programs for children and adults, to poetry readings and lectures, and so on."
The Hammer Museum, still in its infancy, does not mount blockbuster exhibitions with big names, but rather smaller-scale exhibitions that center around social issues. In this way, the museum addresses the concerns of both the community as well as contemporary artists, who are increasingly driven by social issues.
"In the 50s and 60s, we had art for art's sake," Hopkins says. "Then in the 70s, a lot of issues became rampant in the art world the art of women, of different ethnic groups. In the 80s, artists became even more involved in political and social issues. We developed a lot of content-laden art as artists began to strike out. Art became a political tool."
Message-driven art, obviously, cannot fulfill its purpose without an educated audience to appreciate it. Stressing the third dictum of the traditional definition of a museum as an entity dedicated to collection, preservation and education, the Hammer Museum tries to create a general public well-versed in art.
For those still unconvinced that art is relevant to their lives, Hopkins offers this incentive to learn art history.
"Eli Broad is an extremely successful business leader, he has a major collection of art and he donates a lot of money to the arts," Hopkins says. "I asked him what business people talk about over in Europe and Asia, and he told me, 'In Europe and Asia, people are always talking about art.'"
ART: Art history lecture series with Henry Hopkins. Five Saturdays, beginning May 4, 10:30 a.m. to noon at the Armand Hammer Museum. TIX: $10 at the door or $40 for entire series. For more info., call (310) 443-7000.
ANDREW SCHOLER/Daily Bruin
Henry Hopkins, director of UCLA's Armand Hammer Museum, gives a lecture on art history each Saturday.