My husband, Alex Hooper, who has died aged 82 after a long illness, had an extraordinarily varied career, including as an archaeologist, film-maker, merchant seaman, teacher and gallery curator.
In the late 1960s, while doing an MA in film studies at the Slade School of Fine Art, Alex became close friends with Peter Gibson of Brett Marvin and the Thunderbolts, and the pair made a documentary about the blues musician John Mayall, The Turning Point (1969). Through going on tour with Mayall, and making the film, Alex hung out with musicians such as Fleetwood Mac, Mick Taylor of the Rolling Stones and Eric Clapton. In 2003, Alex interviewed many of them again, for a second film about Mayall directed by Peter and produced by Martin Weitz – John Mayall, Godfather of British Blues. The pair also worked with the experimental British theatre director Pip Simmons on his multimedia performance projects.
Cornwall was where Alex finally settled down, working for more than 30 years as assistant curator at Falmouth Art Gallery.
He was born on a farm in Oxshott, Surrey, the youngest child of Elsie (nee Griffin), a midwife, and George Hooper, a tenant farmer. While registered as Alexander, he was called Rodney by his family, and known by that name throughout his childhood. In 1943, when he was two, the family moved to Raynes Park, Wimbledon, to live above a tobacconist’s shop that his parents ran, then a nearby council flat after their divorce. He attended Richmond grammar school, delivered paraffin after school and in 1960 was the first in the family to go to university, to study philosophy at Durham.
He left after a year to travel to India, then joined the merchant navy. For the next three and a half years he was an engine-greaser, stopping off in Peru, Japan and Montreal. Returning to London, he self-funded an archaeology and anthropology degree at University College London, graduating in 1967.
Between his film projects, Alex taught at schools in south London, cleaned cages at London Zoo, worked as a night-time electrician at a department store, and did an MPhil on Palaeolithic cave art at the Institute of Archaeology (1977).
With David Collison, he produced a study of paintings at the cave of Les Églises at Ussat-les-Bains, in Ariège. In 1980 Alex took up a two-year teaching post in archaeology at Ahmadu Bello University, Nigeria.
He and I met in London in 1984, and the following year moved to Cornwall, for my job teaching at Exeter University. We married in 1986 and settled in Truro.
Alex was such a fixture at Falmouth Art Gallery until his retirement in 2019 that the automata artist Keith Newstead made a model of him. He also briefly taught art history, from prehistoric cave art to Gaudí, at Falmouth College of Art.
Alex’s siblings predeceased him. He was very close to his nephew, Jim, and nieces, Sue and Paula, having helped with their upbringing.
I survive him.
