Eileen Cooper RA.

Eileen Cooper is an artist known for her strong and passionate commitment to figuration. Originally from the Peak District, Cooper studied first at Goldsmiths College (1971-74) and then at the Royal College of Art (1974-77) she went on to teach at a wide range of art schools including St Martin’s, the Royal College of Art, City & Guilds in London and latterly at the Royal Academy of Arts. In 2000 she was elected a Royal Academician.

Eileen Cooper’s work has been exhibited widely widely in the UK and internationally. Currently, her solo exhibition ‘Evergreen’, is at the Royal Academy of Arts. ‘Light is Therefore Colour’, alongside Sinta Tantra, continues at Turner’s House Museum and her work features in the critically acclaimed Hayward Gallery Touring Exhibition, ‘Acts of Creation’, now at Dundee Contemporary Arts and the major summer exhibition, ‘Seeing Each Other’, at Pallant House Gallery’s. Her work can also be seen at The National Portrait Gallery’s permanent collection display ‘Lines of Feeling’ and The Hepworth Wakefield in ‘The Living Collection’. Cooper’s work will also befeatured in the upcoming exhibition ‘Feelings in Common’ at the Pera Museum in Turkey.

Cooper’s work featured in the seminal exhibition, ‘Women in Revolt!’ which debuted at Tate Britain and was most recently shown at the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester after a successful run at National Galleries Scotland. Cooper has previously held solo shows at prominent institutions including The Women’s Art Collection in Cambridge, Leicester Museum & Art Gallery, and Dulwich Picture Gallery. Her work has also been included in major group exhibitions at Tate, the Barbican, the Courtauld Gallery, the V&A, and the Queen’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace, among many others.

From 2010–17 Cooper served as Keeper of the Royal Academy of Arts, becoming the first woman elected to the role since the founding of the RA in 1768. In 2017 and 2009 she was coordinator of the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. She was made an Officer of the British Empire (OBE) for services to Art and Art Education in 2016. Her commitment to the development of emerging artists continues to be a particular focus. She is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Art, and of Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge, and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Southampton Solent University in 2014.Her work is in the permanent collections of the Tate (UK), The Arts Council Collection (UK), The British Museum (UK), Dallas Museum of Art (Texas), The Government Art Collection (UK), The Hepworth Wakefield (UK), among more.

Throughout her career Cooper’s work has contained a strong autobiographical element, while also being allegorical and poetic. A strong colourist and described as a magic realist, Cooper brings an unapologetically female perspective to her subject matter, encompassing sexuality, motherhood, life and death. Her images, simultaneously bold and tender, reveal a range of feeling that is both deeply engrossing and readily accessible, yet very much part of contemporary art practice. Renowned for her work as a painter and printmaker, Cooper also embraces drawing, collage, ceramics, and sculpture in her expansive practice.