A rebel, outcast, innovator and explorer, Dennis Hopper was the icon of last century’s troubled youth, fascinated by his restless wanderings and unnerving psychedelic exploration captured in 1969 masterpiece Easy Rider. “With its portrait of counterculture heroes raising their middle fingers to the uptight middle-class hypocrisies, Easy Rider became the cinematic symbol of the 1960s, a celluloid anthem to freedom, macho bravado and anti-establishment rebellion.”, Ann Hornaday wrote in Hopper’s eulogy in the Washington Post in 2010. More interested in “the reality of things going on around me than the fantasies of the world I work in,” Hopper captured America’s dynamic social and cultural life of the 60s in more than 18,000 photographs moving between humour and pathos, the playful and the intimate, the glamorous and the everyday. A body of 400 photographs – initially selected by Hopper for an exhibition at Fort Worth Art Center in Texas in 1970 – is now staged at London’s Royal Academy in an exhibition titled “Dennis Hopper: The Lost Album” running through October 19th 2014.
Rujana Rebernjak – Images courtesy of the Royal Academy
