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The Art of Julian Cooper is a personal reflection on a life spent looking for places that carry a particular charge for the artist, finding them in some of the most inhospitable places on the planet. It illustrates that throughout his journeying and searching for a fitting way to paint the world, he has experienced the life-long power of one place - The English Lake District. The accompanying text gives a rare, authentic and accessible account of the circumstances behind the artist’s work and follows Cooper’s development as a painter born into an artistic dynasty, from art school in London to his move from abstraction towards figurative painting, and his return to Cumbria and beyond to depict some of the great mountains of the world.
About the author
Julian Cooper was born in Grasmere, Cumbria in 1947, the youngest of the Heaton Cooper dynasty of landscape painters. He studied at Lancaster School of Art (1963-64) and Goldsmiths College School of Art (1964-69). Awarded the Boise Travelling Scholarship in 1969, he travelled in Europe and was resident at the British School at Rome (1969-70). He returned to the Lake District in 1975 and his work has ranged from narrative paintings based on Malcom Lowry’s novel
Under the Volcano to a series of paintings about the assassination of the Brazilian union leader and environmentalist Chico Mendes. He has since developed an international reputation as one of the most imaginative and thought-provoking mountain painters of his generation. He now lives and works in Cockermouth.
