- NameDouglas Coupland
- Sexmale
- Nationality/DatesCanadian, born 1961-12-30
Biography[2001-11-29]
Douglas Coupland was born on a Canadian military base in Baden-Sollingen, Germany. He is the third of four sons of Douglas Charles Thomas who is a doctor and C. Janet (Campbell) Coupland who originally came from Winnipeg (no remaining relatives there). Of his family, he has said "I come from an unemotional, undemonstrative family." He returned to Vancouver at the age of 4 in 1965, was raised there. His parents still reside in the same house he grew up in. During his childhood, he had no religious upbringing and sleep was very important to the family: he and other family members often missed class because of the need to sleep.
Coupland graduated in 1979 from Sentinel Secondary School in West Vancouver. After graduating Emily Carr College of Art and Design in Vancouver in 1984 from the studio program in sculpture, Coupland travelled to Hawaii, the European Design Insitute in Milan, Italy and the Hokkaido College of Art and Design in Sapporo, Japan. In Japan, he completed a two-year course in Japanese business science along with fine art and industrial design in 1986. He enjoyed early success as a sculptor, including a solo show at the Vancouver Art Gallery entitled "The Floating World" in November 1987. He was offered a writing job after the editor of a local paper (Malcolm Parry) was amused by a postcard he had written while living in Japan and asked him to do a piece on a noted Los Angeles art dealer. Of this job, he called it a "bottom-of-the-food-chain" with "Our office cubicles were like veal-fattening pens. There was just no dignity."
Källa: http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Gallery/5560/coupbiog.html. [jml]