Highlights of the Marcia Hopman Exhibit and Panel Discussion
Graphic artist and designer Marcia Evert Hopman’s work is being showcased in the College of Architecture, Planning and Public Affairs’ Max W. Sullivan Gallery and has only a few days remaining to visit.
The exhibition, titled “Marcia Hopman: Intuition and Self Revelation,” will be open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. everyday until Friday. David Hopman, landscape architecture associate professor, curated the gallery to recognize the newly rediscovered work of his late mother.
Marcia Hopman was born in 1920, growing up during World War II and its aftermath. She was strongly influenced by different European artists, according to exhibit signage, according to signage. Marcia Hopman later became influential to European artists, bringing ideas from the U.S. to Europe during the “period of influence” from 1948 to 1954. She died in 2013.
The exhibition showcases her complete artistic evolution, from her first abstract paintings to her later work in collage, watercolor and lithography. She kept a unique view on art throughout her lifetime, wanting to merge various elements into her pieces.
On Feb. 15, there was a reception and panel at the gallery to give more in-depth history about Marcia Hopman’s career and art. At the panel, David Hopman discussed more personal knowledge about his mother’s life and the exhibit’s origin. David Hopman said he took inspiration from how his mother held herself to an incredibly high standard throughout everything she accomplished in life, applying this to his career. “I think her standards helped me make the decision to try to go as far as you can possibly go, which is to become a landscape architect,” he said.
The panel also discussed new information about Marcia Hopman that even David Hopman was not aware of. Ultimately, Kerstin Jesse, curator at the Leopold Museum in Vienna, Austria, became the catalyst for the exhibit's creation with all of the information she was able to find about the artist.
Delving deeper into the era Marcia Hopman was raised in, the panel spoke about some of the challenges she faced, including rampant misogyny. This prevented her art from being fully recognized until Jesse recovered information about the artist and reached out to David Hopman. The information motivated him to curate the exhibit.
Graduate student Fabiola Valenzuela, lectures and exhibitions committee member, said they liked the display and how it showcased the artist’s early and later work. “I'm just glad that the Art Department and the School of Architecture and CAPPA are working together,” said Valenzuela. “I think that's really nice to see both of the schools doing programming together.”
On top of being well versed in art theory and its principles, a key part of Marcia Hopman’s methodology was intuition, David Hopman said. “She really wanted to tap into her subconscious and let the art kind of dictate what it's going to be,” David Hopman said. “That's part of the reason why there was so much variety, it wasn't formulaic.”
Story by Pedro Malkomes, UTA Shorthorn