Charlie Scheips

Charles Dare Scheips Jr. is an American author, curator and archivist.

Biography

Scheips was born in Manhattan the son of Dr. Charles Dare Scheips Sr. an Industrial psychologist and the former Marguerite Toole an editor at Life magazine and Time/Life books. He moved with his family to Milwaukee in 1964 where he attended kindergarten and then elementary school at the Milwaukee University School (later University School of Milwaukee) and subsequently the Atwater Elementary School in suburban Shorewood. The family then moved once again this time to Hartford, Connecticut where he graduated from the William H. Hall High School. He then returned to Wisconsin to attend college and received his Bachelor of Arts degree in art/art history from Ripon College in Ripon, Wisconsin. Academically he went on to receive his Master of Art degree from Columbia University.

Artist David Hockney's assistant for four years during the mid-nineteen eighties, he is his friend of four decades running and the curator of the first exhibition of the British pop art icon's iPad drawings held at the Pierre Bergé – Yves Saint Laurent Foundation in Paris in 2010 (the exhibition then traveled on to the Louisiana Museum in Denmark and the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto). Hockney also painted "Self Portrait with Charlie" which is in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery in London, as well as several other paintings in which Scheips is a subject. He also appears himself in the films "Waiting for Hockney", Randall Wright's "Hockney" (2014), and "Bert Stern the Original Madman". Scheips has penned articles for Harper's Bazaar and Architectural Digest, among other publications. In addition he created and wrote the "Art Set" column for New York Social Diary.

Scheips was the founding director of the Condé Nast Archive and is the consulting project director of the Elizabeth Taylor Archive.

Scheips also served as the acting director of public relations for the Museum of Contemporary art in Chicago for a stint in the 1980s following college (where he first met Hockney while a traveling exhibit of the painter's work was at the museum), the organizer of the Los Angeles Contemporary Art Fair from 1989 until 1990 and as worldwide director of photographs for Phillips de Pury from 2007 until 2009.

Books

In 2006 Scheips authored 'Andy Warhol: The Day the Factory Died(a collaboration with photographer Christophe Von Hohenberg). In 2007 Scheips wrote "American Fashion' (Assouline in collaboration with the Council of Fashion Designers of America 2007). Of this volume Rima Suqi says in writing forBest Design Books'', that... " (the book) does an excellent job of showcasing iconic clothing spanning over 70 years (ending in the 1990s) and the journey of over 100 American designers into international stardom and becoming household name".

Scheips most recent volume is Elsie de Wolfe’s Paris: Frivolity Before the Storm. The volume is a sweeping illustrated history of international high society before World War ll centered around the woman who originated the profession of interior decorator and the two lavish Circus Balls de Wolfe threw at her home in Versailles just before the Second World War marked the end of a universe of glamour after which, as Gotham Magazine said in their review of the publication "the lights went out".

Personal life

Scheip's life partner is Thomas Arthur Graf. He has three younger brothers; Theodore, Peter and Derek.

Quote

On not wearing white after Labor Day - ...“All the magazines and tastemakers were centered in big cities, usually in northern climates that had seasons,... Therefore, when the blustery, muddy fall came, white clothing became not only impractical but a fashion faux-pas waiting to happen"...