William Nelson Copley (1919-1996)

"With CPLY's recent paintings, springtime has bloomed. His cast of characters and the usual suspects (naked nymphs and all) are back at their old stands and giddy pursuits, in parlors and bedrooms, on beds and baseball fields. These paintings, large and unusually lyric in color, are as lushly laid forth and assured as any CPLY's that I have seen. There is delight in this stellar performance of one of our masters of what has been described as 'an art of inappropriate behavior.'"
(W. Hopps, "Springtime for CPLY," in CPLY: Trust Lust Heed Greed, exh. cat., Phyllis Kind Gallery, Chicago, 1991).