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Dennis Hopper

The Lost Album

May 7–June 22, 2013
980 Madison Avenue, New York

Installation video Play Button

Installation video

Installation view, photo by Rob McKeever

Installation view, photo by Rob McKeever

Installation view Photo by Rob McKeever

Installation view Photo by Rob McKeever

Installation view Photo by Rob McKeever

Installation view Photo by Rob McKeever

Installation view Photo by Rob McKeever

Installation view Photo by Rob McKeever

Installation view Photo by Rob McKeever

Installation view Photo by Rob McKeever

Installation view Photo by Rob McKeever

Installation view Photo by Rob McKeever

Installation view Photo by Rob McKeever

Installation view Photo by Rob McKeever

Works Exhibited

Dennis Hopper, Neil Young in Desert Shot, 1961–67

Dennis Hopper, Neil Young in Desert Shot, 1961–67

Dennis Hopper, Hopper House at 1712, Living Room, Mona Lisa, 1965

Dennis Hopper, Hopper House at 1712, Living Room, Mona Lisa, 1965

Dennis Hopper, Irving Blum and Peggy Moffitt, 1964

Dennis Hopper, Irving Blum and Peggy Moffitt, 1964

Dennis Hopper, THE ONLY ISM FOR ME IS ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM, 1962

Dennis Hopper, THE ONLY ISM FOR ME IS ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM, 1962

Dennis Hopper, Beverly Renee on Bed, 1961

Dennis Hopper, Beverly Renee on Bed, 1961

Dennis Hopper, Double Standard, 1961

Dennis Hopper, Double Standard, 1961

Dennis Hopper, Bad Heart, 1961

Dennis Hopper, Bad Heart, 1961

Dennis Hopper, Effaced Double Poster, 1961

Dennis Hopper, Effaced Double Poster, 1961

About

This is a story of a man/child who chose to develop his five senses and live and experience rather than just read.
—Dennis Hopper

Gagosian Gallery is pleased to present photographs from The Lost Album of the late Dennis Hopper. This historically significant body of work from the 1960s has not been exhibited in the United States since 1970.

Hopper established his reputation as a cult director with Easy Rider (1969), while maintaining his reputation as an edgy character actor with gritty performances in The American Friend (1977), Apocalypse Now (1979), Blue Velvet (1986), and Hoosiers (1986). Before his rise to Hollywood stardom, he captured the establishment-busting spirit of the 1960s in photographs that travel from Los Angeles to Harlem to Tijuana, and which portray iconic figures including Tina Turner, Andy Warhol, and Martin Luther King, Jr. The Lost Album in its entirety comprises over 400 black and white photographs taken between 1961—when his first wife Brooke Hayward gave him a Nikon camera for his birthday—and 1967. He would not make photographs again until the early 1980s.

Exhibited in its entirety, The Lost Album reveals casual portraits of artistic luminaries (Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg), leading actors (Jane Fonda, Paul Newman, John Wayne), and mythic musicians (James Brown, The Byrds, Jefferson Airplane), as well as stirring images of the Civil Rights Movement. There are also hippie gatherings, the Apollo 11 lunar landing, Mexican bullfights, and catchy advertisements for popular cars, soft drinks, and newspapers.

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