Get to Know the Mystery Artist with Beyoncé’s Approval

The glare of Beyoncé‘s celebrity can be frightfully bright, like when she had everyone Googling “Warsan Shire” at the same time – as the credits rolled at the end of the “Lemonade” premiere, the poet was prominently cited – or when, yesterday, she posted a picture of herself at the Menil Collection in Houston during a recent stop on her “Formation” tour. The recipient of Bey’s fame runoff? The late William N. Copley, the self-taught artist who went by CPLY, and whose current retrospective was on view at her hometown museum.

Just like the trendy artists hanging in her TriBeCa apartment, including David Hammons and Richard Prince, Copley’s an equally fashionable choice: “William N. Copley: The World According to CPLY” was organized in partnership with the Prada Foundation. Encompassing around 100 works, it’s the artist’s first comprehensive museum showing in the U.S., starting with his early Surrealist-inspired works in Paris in the ’50s, and follows the themes he returned to for decades, like nationalism, cars, and nudes. Like Bey, though, he kept himself busy: Copley also collected art, even staring his own gallery in Beverly Hills in the ’40s. The artist may be long gone – he died at 77 in 1996 – but he’ll stay in Beyoncé’s spotlight just a bit longer: If you’re headed down south, the show’s up until July 24th.