Hopkins was part of New York’s initial wave of abstract expressionists which included Mark Rothko, Robert Motherwell, Franz Kline, among others. Hopkins’ hard-edged paintings, collages, and architectonic sculptures inspired art critic Michael Brenson to comment in The New York Times, "If the work is about sacrifice and violence, it is also about ecstasy and illumination." Hopkins earned a Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1976 and a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship in 1979. His work is in the permanent collection of the Whitney Museum of Art, San Francisco Museum of Art, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Hopkins resided in New York City and Wellfleet, Massachusetts.