Jack Hooper

Jack Hooper (Jack Meredith Hooper or Jack M. Hooper) (August 26, 1928 - January 24, 2014) was an American painter, muralist, sculptor, printmaker and art educator. Hooper was a major figure on the Southern California art scene, belonging to that generation of Los Angeles painters who matured during the late 1950s and the 1960s, painters such as John Altoon, Sam Amato, Robert Irwin, Lee Mullican, William Brice and Billy Al Bengston. He was an innovator in the use of new materials, most importantly plastic in art. He is known for abstract expressionist, mural and figurative painting. Hooper has exhibited in art museums and galleries nationally and internationally including solo shows in Europe, Mexico and the United States. Modeling renown UCLA art professor and figurative artist, Jan Stussy, the last 20 years of his life were spent in rural Mexico, where he drew and painted every single day until his death. Recognized as gifted in art by family, After graduating from public high school, Hooper served as a communications officer in the United States Army Air Corps in Antarctica and Jamaica at the end of WW II. Using G.I. Bill education benefits after his military service, he earned an A.A., Art in 1951 from Los Angeles City College. and "The American College South Of The Border". "Mexico City in the 1950s has been compared to the Paris of the 20s 'where ideas, art, literature and revolution could be discussed' on and off campus, in the classrooms, the sidewalk cafés, and the all-night parties." He did advanced studies under Siqueiros in raw synthetic paint media and their application to mural and easel painting. Siqueiros and Hooper pushed the use of acrylic paint rather than oil paint and experimented with sgraffito in painting murals.

Study Abroad - Europe Upon the recommendation of UCLA instructor Stanton Macdonald-Wright to study to be a painter at the prestigious fine art schools in Europe, like he had done at the age of 19, Hooper attended the Académie Julian and did independent study at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière from 1952 to 1953. who Hooper, like Macdonald-Wright,

Many colleges had grown large art faculties to deal with the influx of veterans.

Early career

Teaching While working toward his master's degree, Hooper became a teaching assistant at UCLA in 1956 and was appointed Associate in Art, Drawing & Painting in 1957. He showed his work in group and solo exhibitions at Southern California museums and galleries, including UCLA Art Galleries with fellow faculty. He received the prestigious Art in America Award, "New Talent in America" (painting) (1958). Hooper was among 13 cash prize winners of the 1959 annual Los Angeles County Museum Exhibition of "Artists of Los Angeles and Vicinity," whose jury included famed Bay Area Figurative Movement painter, Elmer Bischoff. Art critic and curator Jules Langsner wrote of his solo show at Bertha Lewinson Gallery, "It is in the drawings of voluptuous females that Hooper is seen to greater advantage. His skimming, undulating line is at once sinuous and decisive."

In the summers of 1960 and 1962, Hooper was a Visiting Professor of Art at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He returned to UCLA for an Assistant Professor of Art appointment in 1961. and later became the Chairman of the Art Department and the Director of Galleries. among many other gallery shows at Mount St. Mary's.

Innovations During 1962–1966, Hooper directed "Sculpture Walls Architectural Murals" in Los Angeles and executed 14 murals. Further explorations of the ancient technique of "Sgraffito" using heavy industrial spray equipment and layers of scraped wet plaster led to over 3000 square feet of murals for public and private structures in the Los Angeles area, with over 30 tons of materials. "Probably the handsomest piece in the show is Jack Hooper's large bas-relief-painting...Hooper's plastic organizations remains powerfully two-dimensional and painterly." "Arts of Southern California - VIII: Drawing," "Art Across America Far West" and "Fifty Paintings by Thirty-Seven Artists of the Los Angeles Area." Richard Diebenkorn, Sam Francis, Morris Graves, Clyfford Still, Mark Tobey, Nathan Oliveira and Mark Rothko. were among the over 100 invited artists in these shows. Primus Stuart Gallery began representing Hooper in 1961, and later David Stuart Galleries, whose list of artists included Joan Brown, Emerson Woelffer and Peter Voulkos. 1959 Junior Art Council Award, Annual Exhibition—"Artists of Los Angeles and Vicinity," Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA 1996 Marina Gallery, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico 1995 Galeria Uno, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico 1991 Stremmel Gallery, Reno, NV 1987 "JACK HOOPER: Portraits of the Family," Vorpal Gallery, San Francisco. CA 1986 San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, San Jose. CA 1974 Re-Vision Gallery, Santa Monica, CA The Lannan Foundation, FL The Arnovick Foundation, Los Altos, CA