Paintbrush and easel

by Dr. Lori Verderame

Born in Philadelphia, PA to well-educated and wealthy parents, Colin Campbell Cooper (1856-1937) was encouraged to pursue a career as an artist. Cooper became an internationally successful painter and he was most famous for his impressionistic street scenes, urban landscapes, and architectural subjects. Cooper made frequent sojourns abroad and studied art in the Netherlands, Belgium, France, and Italy.

Artists in the City

In 1902, Cooper, and his wife fellow painter, Emma Lampbert, settled in New York City where they remained for the next twenty years. In the Big Apple, Cooper painted the busy urban street scenes that made him famous to collectors and museum visitors the world over. His paintings show the influence of the great landscape painters for whom the cityscape became the most evident subject such as Robert Henri, Robert Spencer, C. Guy Wiggins, John Sloan, and Maurice Prendergast.

In 1921-22, following his wife’s death, Cooper moved to Santa Barbara, CA where he assumed the position of Dean of Painting at the Santa Barbara School of Art. Cooper’s works are highly regarded in art circles on the east and west coast. His paintings are included in such esteemed collections as the White House, Washington, DC; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; the National Museum of American Art, Washington, DC; the Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, OH; the Dallas Museum of the Fine Arts, Dallas, TX; the St. Louis Museum of Fine Arts, St. Louis, MO; the Allentown Art Museum, Allentown, PA; the New York Historical Society, New York, NY; the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA; the Reading Public Museum, Reading, PA; the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA; and the Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, PA. Colin Campbell Cooper died on November 6, 1937.

Request an online appraisal of your Colin Campbell Cooper piece from Dr. Lori.