Henry Hopkins
Curator
Betty Asher and Henry Hopkins in front of Ed Ruscha's painting The Los Angeles County Museum on Fire (1965–68), ca. late 1960s. © Ed Ruscha. The Getty Research Institute, Betty Asher Papers, Gift of Michael Asher, 2009.M.30
Henry T. Hopkins (1928–2009) was born in Idaho and studied art at the Art Institute of Chicago. After time spent in the military, he moved to Los Angeles in 1957 to continue his studies in painting and art history at UCLA. In 1961 Hopkins established the short-lived Huysman Gallery, whose controversial but influential exhibition War Babies introduced a new group of artists to the Los Angeles art scene. As a curator at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in the 1960s, Hopkins championed the work of artists from Southern California, something he continued to do in subsequent positions as director of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles.
Explore the Archive
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Video: Arts advocate Lyn Kienholz talks about censorship in the L.A. art scene
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Video: Joe Goode, Larry Bell, Ron Miyashiro, and Jerry McMillan speak about the exhibition War Babies, 2010–11
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Poster for the exhibition War Babies at Huysman Gallery in Los Angeles, May 29–June 17, 1961. Poster created by Jerry McMillan and Joe Goode. Photo © Jerry McMillan. Design © Joe Goode. The Getty Research Institute, 2006.M.1.5. Image courtesy of Jerry McMillan and Craig Krull Gallery, Santa Monica
