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Colin Campbell Cooper
Colin Campbell Cooper, Jr. (March 8, 1856 – November 6, 1937) was an American impressionist painter of architectural paintings, especially of skyscrapers in New York City, Philadelphia, and Chicago. An avid traveler, he created many paintings of European and Asian landmarks, as well as natural landscapes, portraits, florals, and interiors.
He studied painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts under Thomas Eakins and at the Académie Julian, the Académie Delécluse and the Académie Vitti. He was elected a member of the National Academy of Design in 1912 and won the gold medal for oil painting and silver medal for watercolor painting at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915. He taught art at Drexel University and served as Dean of painting at the Santa Barbara Community School of Arts. In the 1920s, he turned to writing and wrote plays and his autobiography In These Old Days. He initiated the efforts to create the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. His first wife, Emma Lampert Cooper, was also a painter.
Cooper was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on March 8, 1856, into a well-to-do family of English-Irish heritage. He had four older and four younger siblings. His mother, Emily Williams Cooper, whose ancestor emigrated to the U.S. from Weymouth, England, was an amateur painter in watercolors. His father, Dr. Colin Campbell Cooper, whose grandfather came from Derry, Ireland, was a surgeon and a lawyer with a great appreciation for the arts. Young Colin had been inspired by the art which he discovered when he attended the Philadelphia Exposition of 1876. Both of his parents were highly supportive of his ambitions and encouraged him to become an artist.
In 1879, Cooper enrolled in the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia and studied art under Thomas Eakins for three years. In 1886, he traveled to the Netherlands, Belgium, and Brittany. Afterwards, his art education resumed at the Académie Julian in Paris from 1886 to 1890, with Henri Lucien Doucet, William-Adolphe Bouguereau, and Jules Joseph Lefebvre. He also studied at Académie Delécluse and Académie Vitti. His work of this period consisted mostly of landscapes painted in a Barbizon manner. He traveled extensively throughout his life, sketching and painting scenes of Europe, Asia, and the United States in watercolors and oils.
Back in Philadelphia, Cooper taught watercolor classes and architectural rendering at Drexel Institute of Art, Science and Industry (now Drexel University) from 1895 to 1898. Many of Cooper's paintings were destroyed in an 1896 fire at Philadelphia's Hazeltine Galleries; as a result, relatively little of his early work exists today.
While at Drexel, he spent his summers abroad, primarily in the Dutch artists colony of Laren in North Holland and in Dordrecht in South Holland. Among the other artists in Dordrecht at this time was renowned painter Emma Lampert (1855–1920) from Rochester, New York. She and Cooper met, and were soon married, in Rochester on June 9, 1897.
In 1898, the Coopers returned to Europe for a few years. During this period, as Cooper painted architectural landmarks, he developed the Impressionist style which he used for the rest of his artistic career.
Cooper and his wife exhibited together in several two-person shows, including a May 1902 exhibit at the Philadelphia Art Club and a 1915 show at the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester. They moved in 1904 to New York City, where he would remain, other than his many travels, until 1921. Here he continued work, which he had begun about two years earlier in Philadelphia, on his famous skyscraper paintings. Cooper said that he was "greatly interested in the skyscraper buildings in Broad Street. It was intensely interesting to watch the freakishness disappear from those queer towering structures in the glory of the right kind of light". He said that the painting which first brought him great success was 1902's Broad Street, New York; in 1903, this painting was honored with the W. T. Evans Award of the New York Watercolor Club. In another interview, he had stated that "one of the points that most strikes me about this view up Broad Street is the dramatic contrast between the old, low type of buildings ... and the great skyscrapers. My pictures are built on these contrasts."
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Colin Campbell Cooper
Colin Campbell Cooper, Jr. (March 8, 1856 – November 6, 1937) was an American impressionist painter of architectural paintings, especially of skyscrapers in New York City, Philadelphia, and Chicago. An avid traveler, he created many paintings of European and Asian landmarks, as well as natural landscapes, portraits, florals, and interiors.
He studied painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts under Thomas Eakins and at the Académie Julian, the Académie Delécluse and the Académie Vitti. He was elected a member of the National Academy of Design in 1912 and won the gold medal for oil painting and silver medal for watercolor painting at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915. He taught art at Drexel University and served as Dean of painting at the Santa Barbara Community School of Arts. In the 1920s, he turned to writing and wrote plays and his autobiography In These Old Days. He initiated the efforts to create the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. His first wife, Emma Lampert Cooper, was also a painter.
Cooper was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on March 8, 1856, into a well-to-do family of English-Irish heritage. He had four older and four younger siblings. His mother, Emily Williams Cooper, whose ancestor emigrated to the U.S. from Weymouth, England, was an amateur painter in watercolors. His father, Dr. Colin Campbell Cooper, whose grandfather came from Derry, Ireland, was a surgeon and a lawyer with a great appreciation for the arts. Young Colin had been inspired by the art which he discovered when he attended the Philadelphia Exposition of 1876. Both of his parents were highly supportive of his ambitions and encouraged him to become an artist.
In 1879, Cooper enrolled in the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia and studied art under Thomas Eakins for three years. In 1886, he traveled to the Netherlands, Belgium, and Brittany. Afterwards, his art education resumed at the Académie Julian in Paris from 1886 to 1890, with Henri Lucien Doucet, William-Adolphe Bouguereau, and Jules Joseph Lefebvre. He also studied at Académie Delécluse and Académie Vitti. His work of this period consisted mostly of landscapes painted in a Barbizon manner. He traveled extensively throughout his life, sketching and painting scenes of Europe, Asia, and the United States in watercolors and oils.
Back in Philadelphia, Cooper taught watercolor classes and architectural rendering at Drexel Institute of Art, Science and Industry (now Drexel University) from 1895 to 1898. Many of Cooper's paintings were destroyed in an 1896 fire at Philadelphia's Hazeltine Galleries; as a result, relatively little of his early work exists today.
While at Drexel, he spent his summers abroad, primarily in the Dutch artists colony of Laren in North Holland and in Dordrecht in South Holland. Among the other artists in Dordrecht at this time was renowned painter Emma Lampert (1855–1920) from Rochester, New York. She and Cooper met, and were soon married, in Rochester on June 9, 1897.
In 1898, the Coopers returned to Europe for a few years. During this period, as Cooper painted architectural landmarks, he developed the Impressionist style which he used for the rest of his artistic career.
Cooper and his wife exhibited together in several two-person shows, including a May 1902 exhibit at the Philadelphia Art Club and a 1915 show at the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester. They moved in 1904 to New York City, where he would remain, other than his many travels, until 1921. Here he continued work, which he had begun about two years earlier in Philadelphia, on his famous skyscraper paintings. Cooper said that he was "greatly interested in the skyscraper buildings in Broad Street. It was intensely interesting to watch the freakishness disappear from those queer towering structures in the glory of the right kind of light". He said that the painting which first brought him great success was 1902's Broad Street, New York; in 1903, this painting was honored with the W. T. Evans Award of the New York Watercolor Club. In another interview, he had stated that "one of the points that most strikes me about this view up Broad Street is the dramatic contrast between the old, low type of buildings ... and the great skyscrapers. My pictures are built on these contrasts."
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