On display at the Royal Academy of Arts were about 400 pictures of Dennis Hopper, which were found in a box as prints after his death in 2010.

According to Hopper himself, he got encouraged by James Dean with whom he had worked with on the set of Rebel Without a Cause (1955) and Giant (1956). His interest in photography grew when his future wife Brook Hayward gave him a Nikon F camera with a 28mm lens. For about six years from 1961 to 1967, there seemed to be no end in Hopper’s dedication towards photography.

Dennis Hopper
Double Standard, 1961
Photograph, 17.45 x 24.87 cm
The Hopper Art Trust
© Dennis Hopper, courtesy The Hopper Art Trust. www.dennishopper.com

“I didn’t crop my photos. They are all full frame natural light Tri-X.” – Dennis Hopper.

I must say, as being a photographer myself which I do just as a hobby, there seemed to be certain perfection in his photography. At first look the pictures seemed to had been cropped to get the perfect frame and composition, but later I found out that he never cropped any of his pictures and took them in full frame and natural light Tri-X.

Dennis Hopper
Jane Fonda and Roger Vadim at Their Wedding in Las Vegas, 1965
Photograph, 17.02 x 24.87 cm
The Hopper Art Trust
© Dennis Hopper, courtesy The Hopper Art Trust. www.dennishopper.com

“They were the only creative outlet for these years until Easy Rider” – Dennis Hopper.

During his stay in Los Angeles from 1961 to 1969, Hopper took an estimated 18000 photographs. He photographed in such a way that it documented all the changes that took place in America’s dynamic social and cultural life during the 1960s. These pictures are in a way a personal and visual diary which goes through humour, pathos, intimate, playful and the glamorous lives of different individuals from the rich and famous to the politicians and the unknown. He went on to take pictures of different famous film and fashion personalities including Jane Fonda, Paul Newman, and Andy Warhol to political personalities like Martin Luther King whom he photographed while taking part in the African-American Civil Rights Movement form Selma to Montgomery in 1965. He also captured the countercultural movements that included Free Speech, Hell’s Angels and the Hippie gatherings.

Dennis Hopper
Untitled (Hippie Girl Dancing), 1967
Photograph, 34.29 x 23.37 cm
The Hopper Art Trust
© Dennis Hopper, courtesy The Hopper Art Trust. www.dennishopper.com

“The movie to me was about freedom and the responsibility that you have being free” – Dennis Hopper about Easy Rider (1969)

He parted with his camera when he started directing Easy Rider in 1969. Easy Rider (1969) is his first film which he wrote and directed. After this film, he stepped into a completely different world and started working as a director. Leaving behind the days in which he only held a camera he went on to write and direct three more movies The Last Movie (1971), Out of the Blue (1980) and Colours (1988).

Dennis Hopper
Andy Warhol, Henry Geldzahler, David Hockney and Jeff Goodman, 1963
Photograph, 17.25 x 24.74 cm
The Hopper Art Trust
© Dennis Hopper, courtesy The Hopper Art Trust. www.dennishopper.com

The Dennis Hopper: The Lost Album in the Royal Academy of Arts, is based on the original installation of his first solo exhibition, for which he personally selected the works which got displayed at the Fort Worth Art Center Museum, Texas in 1970. For a moment, the pictures will take you back into the past and will make you look at the world through Dennis Hopper’s eyes the way he saw it.

Dennis Hopper
Paul Newman, 1964
Photograph, 16.64 x 25.02 cm
The Hopper Art Trust
© Dennis Hopper, courtesy The Hopper Art Trust. www.dennishopper.com