Eileen Cooper

Eileen Cooper (born 10 June 1953) is a British artist, known primarily as a painter and printmaker.
Early life
Cooper was born in Glossop, Derbyshire and attended Ashton-under-Lyne College of Further Education. She went on to study at Goldsmiths College (1971-1974) and the Royal College of Art (1974-1977) gaining an MA in painting.
Career
Between 1977 and 2000 she was visiting lectures at arts schools across the UK including Falmouth School of Art, Leicester College of Art & Design, St Martin’s School of Art, Camberwell College of Arts, and City & Guilds of London Art School. She lectured on Printmaking at the Royal College of Art between 1994 and 2006 and became Head of Printmaking at the Royal Academy Schools in 2005 until 2010.
She was elected a Royal Academician in 2001. From 2010 to 2017, Cooper served as Keeper of the Royal Academy, one of only 4 officers selected from the 80 Royal Academicians, and with primary responsibility for the Royal Academy Schools, thereby becoming the first woman to be elected to this role in the Royal Academy's 250-year history.
In 2017, Cooper curated and co-ordinated the Royal Academy of Arts' 249th annual Summer Exhibition.
After ending her teaching role at the Royal Academy Schools in 2017 Cooper returned to drawing from life and portraiture in particular. Two of the works from this series (one of fellow Royal Academician Cathie Pilkington and the other a self-portrait) were acquired by the National Portrait Gallery.
Selected solo exhibitions
2019 Personal Space, Huxley-Parlour Gallery, London
2018 Under the Same Moon, Letitia Gallery, Beirut, Lebanon
2017 Till the Morning Comes, The Fine Art Society, London
2017 Eileen Cooper: A Woman's Skin, Wolfson College, University of Cambridge
2016 Between the Lines, Galerie MIRO, Prague, Czech Republic
2015 Hide and Seek: Work on Paper 1977-2014, Royal Academy of Arts, London (touring to Swindon Museum and Art Gallery; The Mercer Art Gallery, Harrogate)
2015 In the Garden, Rabley Drawing Centre, Marlborough, Wiltshire
2013 Edge to Edge, Art First, London
2012 South Lookout Project, Aldeburgh Beach, Suffolk
2010 Collages, Royal Academy of Arts, London
2008 Taking Stock: The Printmaking of Eileen Cooper RA, Clifford Chance, London and Liverpool Hope University
2000 Raw Material: Eileen Cooper at Dulwich Picture Gallery, Dulwich Picture Gallery, London
1999 Second Skin: Eileen Cooper in the 80s and 90s travelling exhibition (Wolverhampton, Nottingham, Eastbourne)
1994 Eileen Cooper at Sadlers Wells, Sadlers Wells Theatre, London
1992 Drawings, Benjamin Rhodes Gallery, London
1986 Castlefield Gallery, Manchester
1979 AIR Gallery, London
Selected group exhibitions
1997-2018 Regular exhibitor at Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London
2018 Sawdust and Sequins: The Art of the Circus, Royal West of England Academy, Bristol
2016 Towards Night, curated by Tom Hammick, Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne
2015 She Came to Stay, curated by Aretha Campbell and Lucy Farley, Rook and Raven Gallery, London
2015 Good Figures, Mall Galleries, London, Jerwood Gridshell Space, Weald and Downland Open Air Museum
2014 Jerwood Drawing Prize 1994-2014: Artist as Selector, Jerwood Gallery, Hastings
2012/13 Encounter: The Royal Academy in the Middle East, Doha
2012 Encounter: The Royal Academy in Asia, Institute of Contemporary Arts, Singapore
2004 The Jerwood Drawing Prize, Jerwood Space, London
1993 Contemporary Art at the Courtauld, Courtauld Institute of Art, London
1992 The New Patrons: Twentieth Century Art from Corporate Collections, Christie's, London
1992 Myth, Dream and Fable, Angel Row Gallery, Nottingham
1992 Innocence and Experience, South Bank Centre, London, Manchester Art Gallery, Hull and Glasgow
1988 The New British Painting, Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati; Chicago Public Library Cultural Center; Haggerty Museum, Milwaukee; South-eastern Center for Contemporary Art, Winston-Salem; Grand Rapids Art Museum, Michigan
1986 John Moores, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
1985 Hand Signals, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham
1984 The Image as Catalyst, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
1982, 1983, 1987 Whitechapel Open, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London
1980 Women's Images of Men, Institute of Contemporary Art, London
1974-76 New Contemporaries, Camden Arts Centre, London
Selected public collections
Arts Council Collection
Government Art Collection, UK
Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery
Bristol Museum & Art Gallery
British Museum, London
Dallas Museum of Art, USA
Imperial College, London
Kunsthalle, Nuremberg, Germany
Manchester Art Gallery
MIMA, Middlesbrough
National Portrait Gallery, London
New Hall Art Collection, Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge
Newport Museum and Art Gallery, Wales
The Open University
Pallant House Gallery, Chichester
Royal Academy of Arts, London
The Royal Collection Trust
Royal College of Art, London
Southampton University Hospital NHS Trust
Swindon Museum and Art Gallery
The Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne
Victoria & Albert Museum, London
University of Warwick Art Collection
Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University, Connecticut, USA
Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester
Wolverhampton Art Gallery
Awards and honours
2018: Glyndebourne Opera Invited Artist
2009 & 2017: Co-ordinator and curator, Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition
2016: Appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to the Arts and Arts Education
2016: Made Honorary Fellow, Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge
2013: Made Honorary Doctor of Arts, Southampton Solent University
2011: Made Honorary Fellow, Royal College of Art, London
2011: Elected Keeper of the Royal Academy of Arts, first woman elected to the post since its foundation in 1768
2010, 2013: Artist in Residence, Alayrac, Tarn France
2008-09: Artist in Residence, Lewisham College, London
2006: Made Fellow of the Royal College of Art
2002: Made Honorary Member, Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers
2001: Elected Royal Academician
1999: Arts & Humanities Research Council Award for ceramics
1998-99: Artist in Residence Dulwich Picture Gallery, London
1992: Staircase project Institute of Contemporary Art, London
1982: Purchase Prize, Nuremberg Drawing Triennial
Publications
Under the Same Moon by Anna McNay, Letitia Gallery, Beirut, 2018
Eileen Cooper: A Woman's Skin by Meredith M Hale and Philip Lindley, Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, 2017
Eileen Cooper: Till the Morning Comes by Michèle Roberts, The Fine Art Society, London, 2017
Eileen Cooper: Between the Lines by Martin Gayford, Royal Academy of Arts, 2015
Hide and Seek: Work on Paper 1977-2014 by Anna McNay, Royal Academy of Arts, 2015
The New British Painting by Edward Lucie-Smith, Carolyn Cohen and Judith Higgins, Phaidon, Oxford, 1988
Contemporary Women Artists by Sister Wendy Beckett, Oxford, 1988
Trans Avant Garde International: New Painting in Britain by Achille Bonito Oliva, Milan, 1982
Television and broadcast
In the Studio film by Charlie Paul, 2015
Art School, Smart School, BBC Radio 4 documentary, produced by Just Radio Ltd, 20 November 2014
Women Artists interview with Emma Jane Kirby for ‘PM’, BBC Radio 4, 28 August 2014
What I See Project, film, 2013
A Story of Eileen Cooper, Artist and Keeper of the Royal Academy’, [www.ladieswhoimpress.com Ladieswholmpress], 17 October 2013
Woman's Hour, BBC Radio 4, 2012
Art School Education interview by Alexander Massouras for Tate Library & Archive, 16 September 2010
Inside Art documentary series, Channel 4, 1994 (BAFTA nominated)
The Art documentary, BBC Education, 1993
References
External links
Official website
1953 births
Living people
20th-century British printmakers
21st-century British printmakers
20th-century English women artists
21st-century English women artists
Alumni of Goldsmiths, University of London
Alumni of the Royal College of Art
British contemporary painters
English printmakers
English women painters
Officers of the Order of the British Empire
People from Glossop
Royal Academicians
Women printmakers