Grace Hopkins: Making Abstract Photographs

GRACE HOPKINS is an artist who uses photography to create square abstract images.

She is the daughter of noted artist Budd Hopkins and noted art historian April Kingsley, who were friends with art world luminaries like Franz Kline, Mark Rothko, Robert Motherwell, Willem de Kooning, et al.  She lived most of her life in the art communities of Manhattan and Outer Cape Cod (Provincetown, Truro, Wellfleet).

Art critic Susan Rand Brown wrote:

“A photographer with the eye and soul of a painter, Hopkins creates an image by isolating a fragment of something larger, perhaps a wall, textured and brightly lit, or flickering in shadow. Hopkins’ images ask that we take nothing for granted. We are jolted into seeing the smallest detail, something we would rush past, as something unexpected, marvelous and, by Hopkins’ positioning the camera just close enough to enlarge the image without distortion, something quite grand. Hers is a vision rooted in a pure form of abstract expressionism. The images she shoots suggest the sharply angled details of a Franz Kline, geometric shapes and flat colors of her father (Budd Hopkins) or a sudden burst of translucent layers, which could have been – but definitely are not – details from a collage by Robert Motherwell. Suddenly a viewer feels surrounded by the freshness of expressionist imagery and motion, each piece different, each piece allusive yet quite original.”

Hopkins graduated from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University (SMFA at Tufts).  She continues to live in Manhattan and Wellfleet with her 17-year-old daughter.

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