Jay Jopling

Jeremy 'Jay' Jopling (born 1963) is an English art dealer, gallerist. Over the past two decades he has established himself as a key figure in the art world and has been instrumental in repositioning London as the international centre for contemporary art.

Early life

Jay Jopling is the son of Michael Jopling, Baron Jopling, a Conservative politician who served for some time as Minister for Agriculture in the Conservative Government led by Margaret Thatcher. Jopling was brought up in Yorkshire and educated at Eton and the University of Edinburgh, where he studied English Literature and History of Art and his first job was selling fire extinguishers door-to-door. As a university student, Jopling visited Manhattan, where he forged links with post-war American artists, encouraging them to donate works for the charity auction "New Art: New World." In the late 1980s, he formed a friendship with the artist Damien Hirst. Hirst had already sold a number of works to the influential collector Charles Saatchi, but Jopling enabled the artist to realise more ambitious projects including the sculpture 'The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living' and more recently the diamond skull 'For the Love of God'. After completing his MA in 1984, he moved to London and began working with the young artists of his generation.