Charlie Scheips

Class of 1981: Artist, writer, curator, cultural historian

Throughout his career, Charlie Scheips has explored the ways art and fashion reflect — and preserve — the culture of their time. He has spent decades examining history through its visual artifacts, believing that while fortunes rise and fall, what endures are the objects that bear witness to human creativity.

“As long as I can remember, I was interested in the visual world,” Scheips said. “World history can be seen through the lens of art. I don’t think history is just about wars won and lost; art reflects the culture of the time and place from which it came.”

Born in New York City on Sept. 13, 1959, Scheips spent part of his childhood in Shorewood, Wisconsin. At Ripon, he majored in art, served as an editor of the Crimson yearbook and newspaper, and broadcast on WRPN radio. He earned a master’s degree in American Studies from Columbia University.

He directed public relations for the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago before moving to Los Angeles, where he became chief assistant to world-renowned artist David Hockney, beginning a collaboration and friendship that would span decades.

Scheips has played a significant role in organizing and interpreting contemporary art on an international stage. In the late 1980s, he helped organize the Los Angeles and London International Contemporary Art Fairs. From 2010 to 2012, he curated the groundbreaking exhibition “David Hockney: Fleurs Fraîches Drawings,” created on the iPhone and iPad, which premiered to worldwide acclaim at the Fondation Pierre Bergé/Yves Saint Laurent in Paris before traveling to the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark and the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto.

The 2013 retrospective “David Hockney: Portraits,” which traveled to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and the National Portrait Gallery in London, included three portraits of Scheips. One, “Self-Portrait with Charlie,” was acquired by the National Portrait Gallery for its permanent collection. Additional Hockney paintings and photographs of Scheips were featured in “David Hockney 25” at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in 2025.

Scheips served as founding director of the Condé Nast Archive in New York for a decade; worldwide director of photographs for the Phillips de Pury auction house; and founding director of the Elizabeth Taylor Archive in Los Angeles. He has been a contributing artist and writer for the digital weekly Air Mail and has written for major international publications including Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, Vanity Fair, and Architectural Digest.

Notable books include “John Rawlings: 30 Years in Vogue” (2000); “Andy Warhol: The Day the Factory Died” (2006); “American Fashion” (2007), a landmark volume created for the Council of Fashion Designers of America; and “Elsie de Wolfe’s Paris: Frivolity Before the Storm” (2015), a richly detailed portrait of the international smart set in the years preceding World War II.

Despite his many professional roles, Scheips considers himself an artist first. His own work in cubism and visual collage reflects his enduring engagement with literature, mythology, religion, music, and cultural history.

“Ripon allowed me to explore all my interests in the arts in both practical and creative ways,” he said. “The College’s commitment to the liberal arts, combined with Professor Erwin Breithaupt’s remarkable art program, shaped my life in ways that remain deeply important to me today.

“I loved Ripon. Its size gave me the freedom to pursue and cultivate my varied interests, and I remain close friends with dozens of my classmates.”

Scheips lives on the Upper East Side of Manhattan with his husband, Thomas Graf.