UpDate - Vol. 15, No. 18, Page 5
February 1, 1996
Artist Loper has ties to UD

     In the catalog for an upcoming Edward L. Loper Sr. retrospective
exhibition, James E. Newton, professor in the Black American Studies
Program, writes of the ties of the African-American artist to "his
beloved Wilmington" and his connections with the UD.
     The Loper exhibition will open at the Delaware Art Museum in
Wilmington on Feb. 2 and close on the artist's 80th birthday, April 7.
The 74 paintings in the exhibit represent a range of Loper's work,
including cityscapes, landscapes, abstracts and figural studies.
     In his essay, Newton writes that one of the most significant
shows in Loper's early career was held at the University: "On Nov. 4,
1941, nine years before the official admittance of black students to
the University of Delaware, the art department of the Women's College
presented an exhibition of paintings by Loper in the art gallery of
the Memorial Library. It was a first of its kind."
     Twenty-six years later, Newton notes, Loper was one of three
guest artists invited to exhibit at a regional art exhibition hosted
by the University. One of Loper's paintings titled Buildings then was
purchased by the Class of 1941 for the University's permanent
collection and it is in the current exhibit. In 1985, Loper was
featured in a solo show for the rededication of the Perkins Student
Center.
     A Wilmington native, Loper submitted his first painting for
exhibition at the Delaware Art Museum in 1937, marking the first time
an African-American artist had entered the Annual Delaware Show.
Entitled After a Shower, it depicted Wilmington at night as he saw it
from his kitchen window.
     "From the start of his art career in 1936 until about the 1960s,"
writes Newton, "Ed Loper played a major role in integrating the arts,
both in Delaware and nationally."
     The Loper paintings at the upcoming retrospective are selected
from private and public collections, among them the National Gallery
of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Museum of African-American
Art in Tampa, Clark Atlanta University and the Howard University
Gallery of Art.
                                                        -Cornelia Weil