Camille Billops (1933 – 2019) was a sculptor, filmmaker, archivist, printmaker, and educator.
Born in Los Angeles, Billops graduated in 1960 from Los Angeles State College, where she majored in special education. She later obtained her M.F.A. degree from City College of New York, in 1973.
Billops's sculptural works are in the permanent collections of the Jersey City Museum and the Museum of Drawers, Bern, Switzerland. Her first exhibition was at Gallerie Akhenaton, where she displayed ceramic pots and sculptures. She later experimented with photography, printmaking, and painting. She exhibited in one-woman and group exhibitions worldwide, including Gallerie Akhenaton, Cairo, Egypt; Hamburg, Germany; Kaohsiung, Taiwan; Gimpel and Weitzenhoffer Gallery; and La Tertulia Museum, Cali, Colombia.
Although she began her career as a sculptor, ceramist, and painter, Billops is best known as a filmmaker. In 1982, she made Suzanne, Suzanne, a film about her niece and her recovery from a heroin addiction. She directed five more films, including Finding Christa in 1991, a highly autobiographical work that won the Grand Jury Prize for documentary at the 1992 Sundance Film Festival.
Her other film credits include Older Women and Love in 1987, The KKK Boutique Ain’t Just Rednecks (1994), Take Your Bags (1998) and A String of Pearls (2002). She produced all of her films with her husband, James V. Hatch, and their film company, Mom and Pop Productions.
Ryan Lee gallery in New York represents of the estate of Billops.
Portrait by Steve Walters for the NYT
