Drawings (1984) features William N. Copley’s exploration of the automobile as seen through ovoid, egg-like realms. Here, the interior of the car is exposed, revealing copulating couples, policemen pursuers, and homages to Manet’s Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe. Originally created alongside a series of innovative paintings on raw linen, Copley’s ink and charcoal drawings from 1984 showed the artist refocusing on the car as a key subject of fascination and possibility, revisiting a theme Copley first initiated in the mid-1950s. The series was recently the subject of an exhibition held in 2023 at Galerie Max Hetzler, Paris, titled AUTOEROTICISM: Paintings from 1984 and related works.

William N. Copley (b. 1919, New York, N.Y.; d. 1996, Sugarloaf Key, Fla.) was a self-taught artist who is celebrated for his pioneering body of work that vividly explores humor, eroticism, and social critique. Primarily a painter, Copley employed an anomalous figural style in provocative works that anticipated many trends in contemporary painting and yet remain difficult to classify. In an artist’s bio submitted to the Whitney Museum of American Art in the mid-1970s, Copley wrote, “My style, whatever it is, has to do with discovering myself.” In total, the artist’s visual corpus includes paintings, drawings, collages, sculptural objects, prints, artist’s books and multiples.

In collaboration with the William N. Copley Estate.