Douglas Cooper (art historian)
Encyclopedia
Douglas Cooper, who also published as Douglas Lord (20 February 1911 – 1 April 1984) was a British
art historian, art critic
and art collector. He mainly collected Cubist
works.
and acquired great wealth, in particular property in Sydney
. His great-grandfather became a member of the New South Wales
legislature and was the first Speaker of the new Legislative Assembly
in 1856. He was made a baronet
in 1863 (Sir Daniel Cooper of Woollahra
) and spent his time both in Australia and England, eventually settling permanently in England, and dying in London. His son and grandson also lived there and sold their Australian property in the 20s of the 20th century, very much to Douglas's annoyance.
Douglas's mother came from old-established English aristocracy. His biographer and longtime partner John Richardson
considered his suffering from the social exclusion of his family by his countrymen to be a defining characteristic of his friend,clarify explaining in particular his Anglophobia
. Cooper never visited Australia and proposed that he might have been conceived there during the honeymoon of his parents.
, where Cooper saw the Sergei Diaghilev
's ballet company; his biographer traces an arc from here to Cooper's late work Picasso et le Théatre. He went to Repton School
and he studied for about a year in Cambridge. When he was 21, he inherited £100,000 (then about US $500,000, a significant fortune), enabling him to study art history at the Sorbonne
, in Paris and in Marburg
, Germany, which was not possible at the time in Cambridge.
, Léger
, Miró
and Klee
in collaboration with Paris-based art dealers like Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler and Pierre Loeb (1897–1964); however, this collaboration ended fast and unfavourably. Cooper was paid out in works of art.
Cooper attributed this failure not least to the conservative policy of the Tate Gallery
; according to Richardson, his resentment was the catalyst for the structure of his own collection, which should prove the backwardness of the Tate Gallery. At the outbreak of the Second World War 1939, he had acquired 137 cubist works, partly with the help of collector and dealer Dr. Gottlieb Friedrich Reber (1880–1959), some of them masterpieces, using a third of his inheritance.
when World War II
started, commanded by the art patron Etienne de Beaumont, who had commissioned works by Picasso and Braque
, among others. His account of the transfer of wounded soldiers to Bordeaux
to be shipped to Plymouth
achieved some fame when published in 1941 by him and his co-driver C. Denis Freeman (The Road to Bordeaux). For this action, he received a French Médaille militaire
.
Back in Liverpool
Cooper was arrested as a spy because of his French uniform, missing papers and improper behaviour, a treatment for which he never forgave his fellow countrymen. Subsequently, he joined the Royal Air Force
Intelligence unit and was sent to Cairo as a interrogator, a job at which he was enormously successful in squeezing out secrets from even hard-boiled prisoners, not least due to his “‘evil queen’ ferocity, penetrating intelligence, and refusal to take no for an answer, as well as his ability to storm, rant, and browbeat in Hochdeutsch
, dialect
, or argot
, [which] were just the qualifications that his new job required.”. He enjoyed the social life there greatly.
, he was assigned to a unit trying to investigate into Nazi looted art: Royal Air Force Intelligence, British Element, Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives (MFAA). He was very successful, his most eminent discovery being the Schenker Papers which made it possible to prove that Paris dealers, Swiss collectors, German experts and museums, in particular the Museum Folkwang
in Essen
were deeply engaged in looting Jewish property and entartete Kunst as well as building collections for Hitler and Göring
(Schenker
was the transport company shipping art to Germany, having excellent bookkeeping)
Equally amazing to MFAA investigators was his detailed research on the Swiss art trade during the war; it turned out that many dealers and collectors had been involved in trading looted art. Cooper spent the whole month of February 1945 as emissary of the MFAA and the correspondent organization of the French, interrogating dealers and collectors having dealt with the Nazis and especially Theodor Fischer of the Fischer Gallery who in 1939 managed the sale of confiscated "degenerate“ artworks
.
He was particularly proud to have found and arrested the Swiss Charles Montag, one of Hitler's art advisors, who had assembled a private art collection of mostly stolen items for the Führer
and was involved in the liquidation of the Paris gallery Bernheim-Jeune; surprisingly, Montag was quickly released. Cooper arrested him again immediately, only to see him set free once again, due to Montag's good connections to Winston Churchill
, who refused to believe that his longtime friend and teacher "good old Montag“ could have done anything objectionable.
, a suitable place to show his impressive art collection, which he continued to expand with newer artists like Klee
and Miró
. During the following years, art historians, collectors, dealers and artists flocked to his home which had become something like an epicenter of Cubism, very much to his pride.
Léger
and Picasso
were regular guests; the latter even became a substantial part of its life. He regarded Picasso as the only genius of the 20th century and he became a substantial promoter of the artist. Picasso tried several times to induce Cooper to sell his castle to him; however, he would not agree and finally in 1958 recommended to Picasso the acquisition of Château of Vauvenargues
.
, sharing his life with him for the next 10 years. John Richardson
moved to southern France
(Provence
) in 1952, as Cooper acquired Château de Castille in the vicinity of Avignon
and transformed the run-down castle into a private museum of early Cubism
. Cooper had been at home in the Paris art scene before World War II
and had been active in the art business as well; by building his own collection, he also met many artists personally and introduced them to his friends. Richardson and Cooper became close friends of Picasso, Fernand Léger
and Nicolas de Staël
as well. At that time Richardson developed an interest in Picasso's portraits and contemplated creating a publication; more than 20 years later, these plans expanded into Richardson's four-part Picasso biography A Life of Picasso. In 1960, Richardson left Cooper and moved to New York City.
and wrote numerous monographs and catalogues about artists of the 19th century, including Degas
, van Gogh
and Renoir
, but also about the Cubists he collected. He was among the first art critic
s to write about modern art
with the same erudition common for artists of the past; in the years before the Second World War, he was a pioneer in this respect. When his catalogue of the exhibition The Courtauld Collection appeared in 1954, The Times
wrote about it:
His most important achievement is probably the catalogue raisonné
of Juan Gris
, which he completed in 1978, six years before his death, and 40 years after beginning it. He was Slade Professor of Fine Art
at Oxford
from 1957 to 1958 and guest professor at Bryn Mawr
and Courtauld Institute in 1961.
and inaccuracies in his works, but also of "flexible ethics“ and "cultivating quarrels as much as friends“.
Cooper not only contributed to The Burlington Magazine as an author, but also served on its board of directors and held shares; he nevertheless tried to force the editor, Benedict Nicolson
, to resign, unsuccessfully. In the 1950s, he attacked the Tate Gallery director John Rothenstein
, mostly for not supporting Modern Art
, trying to get him dismissed. He even managed to anger Picasso so much that he excluded him from his circle and surroundings after he pressed Picasso around 1970 to legalize his children.
, heavily injured by stab wounds in the stomach; on his way to the post office in Nîmes to send an article about Picasso's birthday to a London newspaper, he had stopped at a notorious quarter and picked up a young Algerian Fellagha
(resistance fighter against the French occupation forces) who had been interned in an open camp nearby. They drove to a lonely area, where the boy drew a knife and required Cooper's money or his life.
Like most people in France in those days, Cooper carried two purses, one with change and one with large bills. He handed over the first, infuriating the robber, who demanded more money and stabbed him several times. Cooper pushed back his intestines and dragged himself towards the city, his training as a medic
proving very useful; against all odds, his cries for help in that lonely area were finally heard, so he could be saved, although he had lost much blood and his intestines were heavily damaged. The culprit was arrested and claimed to have been resisting a sexual assault.
In 1974, about 20 small paintings by Picasso, Braque
and Gris were stolen from his house; and then Cooper foolishly dismissed his old housekeeper and in consequence lost all respect from the neighbours. Afterwards, he relocated to Monte Carlo
, mainly for safety reasons, where he led a rather secluded life. Both incidents were reported by major English and French newspapers.
In the summer of 1965, Cooper had organized a large exhibition in Toulouse called Picasso et le Théatre in amicable agreement with Picasso and published the book about this subject two years later. However he was not pleased with Picasso's late work. As a protest against praise in the French art magazine Connaissance des Arts, he made sure that a letter to the editor was published after the death of Picasso in 1973, where he declared:
Although it looks like he might have wanted to come to terms with the Tate Gallery at the end of his life (in 1983, he organized the exhibition Essential Cubism for them), he never overcame his aversion to England. In particular, he did not esteem any art produced in his native country. In a letter to the editor of The Times, he declared in 1980:
Towards his life's end, he was honoured by being appointed the first foreign patron of the Museo del Prado
in Madrid, which made him very proud. In gratitude, he donated his best Gris
to the Prado, Portrait of the Artist's Wife from 1916, and a cubist Still Life with Pigeons by Picasso. His only other donation went to the Kunstmuseum Basel
; the Tate Gallery didn't receive anything. Cooper died on 1 April 1984 (Fools' Day), perhaps completely fitting, as he predicted. He left an incomplete catalogue raisonné of Paul Gauguin
and his art collection to his adopted son William McCarty Cooper (having adopted him according to French law, in order that nobody else would inherit anything, in particular not his family). His written legacy is kept at the Getty Research Institute
, Los Angeles, CA.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
art historian, art critic
Art critic
An art critic is a person who specializes in evaluating art. Their written critiques, or reviews, are published in newspapers, magazines, books and on web sites...
and art collector. He mainly collected Cubist
Cubism
Cubism was a 20th century avant-garde art movement, pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture...
works.
Family background
Early in the 19th century, Cooper's forebears had emigrated to AustraliaAustralia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
and acquired great wealth, in particular property in Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
. His great-grandfather became a member of the New South Wales
New South Wales
New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...
legislature and was the first Speaker of the new Legislative Assembly
Parliament of New South Wales
The Parliament of New South Wales, located in Parliament House on Macquarie Street, Sydney, is the main legislative body in the Australian state of New South Wales . It is a bicameral parliament elected by the people of the state in general elections. The parliament shares law making powers with...
in 1856. He was made a baronet
Baronet
A baronet or the rare female equivalent, a baronetess , is the holder of a hereditary baronetcy awarded by the British Crown...
in 1863 (Sir Daniel Cooper of Woollahra
Woollahra, New South Wales
Woollahra is a suburb in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Woollahra is located 5 kilometres east of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the Municipality of Woollahra. The Municipality of Woollahra takes its name from the...
) and spent his time both in Australia and England, eventually settling permanently in England, and dying in London. His son and grandson also lived there and sold their Australian property in the 20s of the 20th century, very much to Douglas's annoyance.
Douglas's mother came from old-established English aristocracy. His biographer and longtime partner John Richardson
John Richardson (art historian)
John Richardson is a British art historian and Picasso biographer.-Life and work:John Patrick Richardson was born as the elder son of Sir Wodehouse Richardson, D.S.O., K.C.B., Quarter-Master General in the Boer War, and founder of London and the British Empire's Army & Navy Stores...
considered his suffering from the social exclusion of his family by his countrymen to be a defining characteristic of his friend,clarify explaining in particular his Anglophobia
Anglophobia
Anglophobia means hatred or fear of England or the English people. The term is sometimes used more loosely for general Anti-British sentiment...
. Cooper never visited Australia and proposed that he might have been conceived there during the honeymoon of his parents.
Education
As a teenager, his erudite uncle Gerald Cooper took him on a trip to Monte CarloMonte Carlo
Monte Carlo is an administrative area of the Principality of Monaco....
, where Cooper saw the Sergei Diaghilev
Sergei Diaghilev
Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev , usually referred to outside of Russia as Serge, was a Russian art critic, patron, ballet impresario and founder of the Ballets Russes, from which many famous dancers and choreographers would arise.-Early life and career:...
's ballet company; his biographer traces an arc from here to Cooper's late work Picasso et le Théatre. He went to Repton School
Repton School
Repton School, founded in 1557, is a co-educational English independent school for both day and boarding pupils, in the British public school tradition, located in the village of Repton, in Derbyshire, in the Midlands area of England...
and he studied for about a year in Cambridge. When he was 21, he inherited £100,000 (then about US $500,000, a significant fortune), enabling him to study art history at the Sorbonne
Sorbonne
The Sorbonne is an edifice of the Latin Quarter, in Paris, France, which has been the historical house of the former University of Paris...
, in Paris and in Marburg
Marburg
Marburg is a city in the state of Hesse, Germany, on the River Lahn. It is the main town of the Marburg-Biedenkopf district and its population, as of March 2010, was 79,911.- Founding and early history :...
, Germany, which was not possible at the time in Cambridge.
Art business
In 1933, he became a partner in the Mayor Gallery in London and planned to show works of PicassoPablo Picasso
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
, Léger
Fernand Léger
Joseph Fernand Henri Léger was a French painter, sculptor, and filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of Cubism which he gradually modified into a more figurative, populist style...
, Miró
Joan Miró
Joan Miró i Ferrà was a Spanish Catalan painter, sculptor, and ceramicist born in Barcelona.Earning international acclaim, his work has been interpreted as Surrealism, a sandbox for the subconscious mind, a re-creation of the childlike, and a manifestation of Catalan pride...
and Klee
Paul Klee
Paul Klee was born in Münchenbuchsee, Switzerland, and is considered both a German and a Swiss painter. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. He was, as well, a student of orientalism...
in collaboration with Paris-based art dealers like Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler and Pierre Loeb (1897–1964); however, this collaboration ended fast and unfavourably. Cooper was paid out in works of art.
Cooper attributed this failure not least to the conservative policy of the Tate Gallery
Tate Gallery
The Tate is an institution that houses the United Kingdom's national collection of British Art, and International Modern and Contemporary Art...
; according to Richardson, his resentment was the catalyst for the structure of his own collection, which should prove the backwardness of the Tate Gallery. At the outbreak of the Second World War 1939, he had acquired 137 cubist works, partly with the help of collector and dealer Dr. Gottlieb Friedrich Reber (1880–1959), some of them masterpieces, using a third of his inheritance.
Military career
Cooper was not eligible for regular military service, due to an eye injury, so he chose to join a medical unit in ParisParis
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
when World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
started, commanded by the art patron Etienne de Beaumont, who had commissioned works by Picasso and Braque
Georges Braque
Georges Braque[p] was a major 20th century French painter and sculptor who, along with Pablo Picasso, developed the art style known as Cubism.-Early Life:...
, among others. His account of the transfer of wounded soldiers to Bordeaux
Bordeaux
Bordeaux is a port city on the Garonne River in the Gironde department in southwestern France.The Bordeaux-Arcachon-Libourne metropolitan area, has a population of 1,010,000 and constitutes the sixth-largest urban area in France. It is the capital of the Aquitaine region, as well as the prefecture...
to be shipped to Plymouth
Plymouth
Plymouth is a city and unitary authority area on the coast of Devon, England, about south-west of London. It is built between the mouths of the rivers Plym to the east and Tamar to the west, where they join Plymouth Sound...
achieved some fame when published in 1941 by him and his co-driver C. Denis Freeman (The Road to Bordeaux). For this action, he received a French Médaille militaire
Médaille militaire
The Médaille militaire is a decoration of the French Republic which was first instituted in 1852.-History:The creator of the médaille was the emperor Napoléon III, who may have taken his inspiration in a medal issued by his father, Louis Bonaparte, King of Holland...
.
Back in Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
Cooper was arrested as a spy because of his French uniform, missing papers and improper behaviour, a treatment for which he never forgave his fellow countrymen. Subsequently, he joined the Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...
Intelligence unit and was sent to Cairo as a interrogator, a job at which he was enormously successful in squeezing out secrets from even hard-boiled prisoners, not least due to his “‘evil queen’ ferocity, penetrating intelligence, and refusal to take no for an answer, as well as his ability to storm, rant, and browbeat in Hochdeutsch
Hochdeutsch
Hochdeutsch is a German word which literally translates to "high German".It is commonly used with two meanings:* Linguistically and historically, it refers to the High German languages , or dialects , which developed in the Southern uplands and the Alps, for example, modern central and southern...
, dialect
Dialect
The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...
, or argot
Argot
An Argot is a secret language used by various groups—including, but not limited to, thieves and other criminals—to prevent outsiders from understanding their conversations. The term argot is also used to refer to the informal specialized vocabulary from a particular field of study, hobby, job,...
, [which] were just the qualifications that his new job required.”. He enjoyed the social life there greatly.
Nazi looted art
After a short interlude in MaltaMalta
Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...
, he was assigned to a unit trying to investigate into Nazi looted art: Royal Air Force Intelligence, British Element, Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives (MFAA). He was very successful, his most eminent discovery being the Schenker Papers which made it possible to prove that Paris dealers, Swiss collectors, German experts and museums, in particular the Museum Folkwang
Museum Folkwang
Museum Folkwang is a major collection of 19th and 20th century art in Essen, Germany. The museum was established in 1922 by merging the Essener Kunstmuseum, which was founded in 1906, and the private Folkwang Museum of the collector and patron Karl Ernst Osthaus in Hagen, founded in 1901.The term...
in Essen
Essen
- Origin of the name :In German-speaking countries, the name of the city Essen often causes confusion as to its origins, because it is commonly known as the German infinitive of the verb for the act of eating, and/or the German noun for food. Although scholars still dispute the interpretation of...
were deeply engaged in looting Jewish property and entartete Kunst as well as building collections for Hitler and Göring
Göring
- People :* Albert Göring, a German businessman, brother of Hermann Göring* Carin Göring, first wife of Hermann Göring* Carl Göring, German master of chess and philosopher* Emmy Göring, German actress and second wife of Hermann Göring...
(Schenker
Schenker AG
Schenker AG is a German logistics company and a subsidiary of Deutsche Bahn, the German railway company. Within DB Logistics, the logistics branch of Deutsche Bahn, Schenker is responsible for land, sea, and air transport and contract logistics...
was the transport company shipping art to Germany, having excellent bookkeeping)
Equally amazing to MFAA investigators was his detailed research on the Swiss art trade during the war; it turned out that many dealers and collectors had been involved in trading looted art. Cooper spent the whole month of February 1945 as emissary of the MFAA and the correspondent organization of the French, interrogating dealers and collectors having dealt with the Nazis and especially Theodor Fischer of the Fischer Gallery who in 1939 managed the sale of confiscated "degenerate“ artworks
Degenerate art
Degenerate art is the English translation of the German entartete Kunst, a term adopted by the Nazi regime in Germany to describe virtually all modern art. Such art was banned on the grounds that it was un-German or Jewish Bolshevist in nature, and those identified as degenerate artists were...
.
He was particularly proud to have found and arrested the Swiss Charles Montag, one of Hitler's art advisors, who had assembled a private art collection of mostly stolen items for the Führer
Führer
Führer , alternatively spelled Fuehrer in both English and German when the umlaut is not available, is a German title meaning leader or guide now most associated with Adolf Hitler, who modelled it on Benito Mussolini's title il Duce, as well as with Georg von Schönerer, whose followers also...
and was involved in the liquidation of the Paris gallery Bernheim-Jeune; surprisingly, Montag was quickly released. Cooper arrested him again immediately, only to see him set free once again, due to Montag's good connections to Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
, who refused to believe that his longtime friend and teacher "good old Montag“ could have done anything objectionable.
Provence
After the Second World War, Cooper returned to England, but could not settle in his native country and moved to southern France, where in 1950 he bought the Château de Castille near AvignonAvignon
Avignon is a French commune in southeastern France in the départment of the Vaucluse bordered by the left bank of the Rhône river. Of the 94,787 inhabitants of the city on 1 January 2010, 12 000 live in the ancient town centre surrounded by its medieval ramparts.Often referred to as the...
, a suitable place to show his impressive art collection, which he continued to expand with newer artists like Klee
Paul Klee
Paul Klee was born in Münchenbuchsee, Switzerland, and is considered both a German and a Swiss painter. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. He was, as well, a student of orientalism...
and Miró
Joan Miró
Joan Miró i Ferrà was a Spanish Catalan painter, sculptor, and ceramicist born in Barcelona.Earning international acclaim, his work has been interpreted as Surrealism, a sandbox for the subconscious mind, a re-creation of the childlike, and a manifestation of Catalan pride...
. During the following years, art historians, collectors, dealers and artists flocked to his home which had become something like an epicenter of Cubism, very much to his pride.
Léger
Fernand Léger
Joseph Fernand Henri Léger was a French painter, sculptor, and filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of Cubism which he gradually modified into a more figurative, populist style...
and Picasso
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
were regular guests; the latter even became a substantial part of its life. He regarded Picasso as the only genius of the 20th century and he became a substantial promoter of the artist. Picasso tried several times to induce Cooper to sell his castle to him; however, he would not agree and finally in 1958 recommended to Picasso the acquisition of Château of Vauvenargues
Château of Vauvenargues
The Château of Vauvenargues is a fortified bastide in the village of Vauvenargues, situated to the northof Montagne Sainte-Victoire, just outside the town of Aix-en-Provence in the south of France....
.
Liaison with John Richardson
In 1950, he became acquainted with art historian John RichardsonJohn Richardson (art historian)
John Richardson is a British art historian and Picasso biographer.-Life and work:John Patrick Richardson was born as the elder son of Sir Wodehouse Richardson, D.S.O., K.C.B., Quarter-Master General in the Boer War, and founder of London and the British Empire's Army & Navy Stores...
, sharing his life with him for the next 10 years. John Richardson
John Richardson (art historian)
John Richardson is a British art historian and Picasso biographer.-Life and work:John Patrick Richardson was born as the elder son of Sir Wodehouse Richardson, D.S.O., K.C.B., Quarter-Master General in the Boer War, and founder of London and the British Empire's Army & Navy Stores...
moved to southern France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
(Provence
Provence
Provence ; Provençal: Provença in classical norm or Prouvènço in Mistralian norm) is a region of south eastern France on the Mediterranean adjacent to Italy. It is part of the administrative région of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur...
) in 1952, as Cooper acquired Château de Castille in the vicinity of Avignon
Avignon
Avignon is a French commune in southeastern France in the départment of the Vaucluse bordered by the left bank of the Rhône river. Of the 94,787 inhabitants of the city on 1 January 2010, 12 000 live in the ancient town centre surrounded by its medieval ramparts.Often referred to as the...
and transformed the run-down castle into a private museum of early Cubism
Cubism
Cubism was a 20th century avant-garde art movement, pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture...
. Cooper had been at home in the Paris art scene before World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and had been active in the art business as well; by building his own collection, he also met many artists personally and introduced them to his friends. Richardson and Cooper became close friends of Picasso, Fernand Léger
Fernand Léger
Joseph Fernand Henri Léger was a French painter, sculptor, and filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of Cubism which he gradually modified into a more figurative, populist style...
and Nicolas de Staël
Nicolas de Staël
Nicolas de Staël was a painter known for his use of a thick impasto and his highly abstract landscape painting...
as well. At that time Richardson developed an interest in Picasso's portraits and contemplated creating a publication; more than 20 years later, these plans expanded into Richardson's four-part Picasso biography A Life of Picasso. In 1960, Richardson left Cooper and moved to New York City.
Author
Cooper published frequently in The Burlington MagazineThe Burlington Magazine
The Burlington Magazine is a monthly academic journal that covers the fine and decorative arts. It is the longest running art journal in the English language and it is a charitable organisation since 1986. It was established in 1903 by a group of art historians and connoisseurs which included Roger...
and wrote numerous monographs and catalogues about artists of the 19th century, including Degas
Edgar Degas
Edgar Degas[p] , born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas, was a French artist famous for his work in painting, sculpture, printmaking and drawing. He is regarded as one of the founders of Impressionism although he rejected the term, and preferred to be called a realist...
, van Gogh
Vincent van Gogh
Vincent Willem van Gogh , and used Brabant dialect in his writing; it is therefore likely that he himself pronounced his name with a Brabant accent: , with a voiced V and palatalized G and gh. In France, where much of his work was produced, it is...
and Renoir
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Pierre-Auguste Renoir was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style. As a celebrator of beauty, and especially feminine sensuality, it has been said that "Renoir is the final representative of a tradition which runs directly from Rubens to...
, but also about the Cubists he collected. He was among the first art critic
Art critic
An art critic is a person who specializes in evaluating art. Their written critiques, or reviews, are published in newspapers, magazines, books and on web sites...
s to write about modern art
Modern art
Modern art includes artistic works produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the style and philosophy of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of...
with the same erudition common for artists of the past; in the years before the Second World War, he was a pioneer in this respect. When his catalogue of the exhibition The Courtauld Collection appeared in 1954, The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
wrote about it:
- “it is not easy to think of another critic who has so consistently applied to modern painting the scholarship normally used in the study of the works of the more distant past.”
- THE TIMES: Benefactor of Art: Courtauld and His Collection
His most important achievement is probably the catalogue raisonné
Catalogue raisonné
The typical catalogue raisonné is a monograph giving a comprehensive catalogue of artworks by an artist.The essential elements of a catalogue raisonné are that it purports to be an exhaustive list of works for a defined subject matter describing the works in a way so that they may be reliably...
of Juan Gris
Juan Gris
José Victoriano González-Pérez , better known as Juan Gris, was a Spanish painter and sculptor who lived and worked in France most of his life...
, which he completed in 1978, six years before his death, and 40 years after beginning it. He was Slade Professor of Fine Art
Slade Professor of Fine Art
The Slade Professorship of Fine Art is the oldest professorship of art at the universities of Cambridge, Oxford and London.-History:The chairs were founded concurrently in 1869 by a bequest from the art collector and philanthropist Felix Slade, with studentships also created in the University of...
at Oxford
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
from 1957 to 1958 and guest professor at Bryn Mawr
Bryn Mawr College
Bryn Mawr College is a women's liberal arts college located in Bryn Mawr, a community in Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania, ten miles west of Philadelphia. The name "Bryn Mawr" means "big hill" in Welsh....
and Courtauld Institute in 1961.
Appreciation
Cooper is an important figure among art experts of the 20th century, however he was controversial because of his contentiousness and his strong need to be a centre of public attention. He was accused not only of plagiarismPlagiarism
Plagiarism is defined in dictionaries as the "wrongful appropriation," "close imitation," or "purloining and publication" of another author's "language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions," and the representation of them as one's own original work, but the notion remains problematic with nebulous...
and inaccuracies in his works, but also of "flexible ethics“ and "cultivating quarrels as much as friends“.
Cooper not only contributed to The Burlington Magazine as an author, but also served on its board of directors and held shares; he nevertheless tried to force the editor, Benedict Nicolson
Benedict Nicolson
Benedict Nicolson, MVO was a British art historian and author.Nicolson was the elder son of authors Harold Nicolson and Vita Sackville-West and the brother of writer and politician Nigel...
, to resign, unsuccessfully. In the 1950s, he attacked the Tate Gallery director John Rothenstein
John Rothenstein
Sir John Knewstub Maurice Rothenstein CBE was an English art historian. He grew up in London the son of Sir William Rothenstein. The family was loosely connected to the Bloomsbury Set. John Rothenstein studied at Oxford University and became friends with T. E. Lawrence...
, mostly for not supporting Modern Art
Modern art
Modern art includes artistic works produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the style and philosophy of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of...
, trying to get him dismissed. He even managed to anger Picasso so much that he excluded him from his circle and surroundings after he pressed Picasso around 1970 to legalize his children.
Misfortunes
In 1961, Cooper was found on a road outside NîmesNîmes
Nîmes is the capital of the Gard department in the Languedoc-Roussillon region in southern France. Nîmes has a rich history, dating back to the Roman Empire, and is a popular tourist destination.-History:...
, heavily injured by stab wounds in the stomach; on his way to the post office in Nîmes to send an article about Picasso's birthday to a London newspaper, he had stopped at a notorious quarter and picked up a young Algerian Fellagha
Fellagha
The Fellagha, an Arabic word literally meaning "bandit", but also comes from "fellah" or farmer, and "fallaq" or blow up, refers to groups of armed militants affiliated with anti-colonial movements in French North Africa...
(resistance fighter against the French occupation forces) who had been interned in an open camp nearby. They drove to a lonely area, where the boy drew a knife and required Cooper's money or his life.
Like most people in France in those days, Cooper carried two purses, one with change and one with large bills. He handed over the first, infuriating the robber, who demanded more money and stabbed him several times. Cooper pushed back his intestines and dragged himself towards the city, his training as a medic
Combat Medical Technician
A Combat Medical Technician CMT is a soldier with a specialist military trade within the Royal Army Medical Corps of the British Army and the Royal Air Force.-Role:The fully trained Combat Medical Technician is capable of:...
proving very useful; against all odds, his cries for help in that lonely area were finally heard, so he could be saved, although he had lost much blood and his intestines were heavily damaged. The culprit was arrested and claimed to have been resisting a sexual assault.
In 1974, about 20 small paintings by Picasso, Braque
Georges Braque
Georges Braque[p] was a major 20th century French painter and sculptor who, along with Pablo Picasso, developed the art style known as Cubism.-Early Life:...
and Gris were stolen from his house; and then Cooper foolishly dismissed his old housekeeper and in consequence lost all respect from the neighbours. Afterwards, he relocated to Monte Carlo
Monte Carlo
Monte Carlo is an administrative area of the Principality of Monaco....
, mainly for safety reasons, where he led a rather secluded life. Both incidents were reported by major English and French newspapers.
Old age
- "Douglas may have started his career as a rebel in the cause of cubismCubismCubism was a 20th century avant-garde art movement, pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture...
, but he ended up as a rebel without a cause at all except a loathing for all forms of progressive art and the American pundits--"the flying rabbits," he called them, "heads on upside down, like a ChagallMarc ChagallMarc Chagall Art critic Robert Hughes referred to Chagall as "the quintessential Jewish artist of the twentieth century."According to art historian Michael J...
"--who promoted them. [...] he went on savaging anyone who dared write about "his" artists, but his tirades were all bark and no bite and no longer to be found in the pages of the Times Literary Supplement or The Burlington Magazine.“ - - JOHN RICHARDSON: The Sorcerer's Apprentice: Picasso, Provence, and Douglas Cooper., p. 300
In the summer of 1965, Cooper had organized a large exhibition in Toulouse called Picasso et le Théatre in amicable agreement with Picasso and published the book about this subject two years later. However he was not pleased with Picasso's late work. As a protest against praise in the French art magazine Connaissance des Arts, he made sure that a letter to the editor was published after the death of Picasso in 1973, where he declared:
- I may, I believe, presume to belong to the serious admirers of Picasso's oeuvre being able to appraise his work. Thus I contemplated these pictures extensively. But they are only incoherent doodles done by a frenetic dotard in the anteroom of death. This had to be said for the record. Faithfully.
- - DOUGLAS COOPER, in: Connaissance des Arts, Nr. 257, Juli 1973, quoted according to Malen gegen die Zeit, 2006
Although it looks like he might have wanted to come to terms with the Tate Gallery at the end of his life (in 1983, he organized the exhibition Essential Cubism for them), he never overcame his aversion to England. In particular, he did not esteem any art produced in his native country. In a letter to the editor of The Times, he declared in 1980:
- “I can see nothing in the work of any British artist of the twentieth century which obliges me – judging of course, by international and eternal standards of achievement – to recognize a major creative talent. To my eyes, the work of all of them seems mediocre, uninspired and not particularly competent.”
- - DOUGLAS COOPER, letter to the editor: The Times (London, United Kingdom), 28 February 1980.
Towards his life's end, he was honoured by being appointed the first foreign patron of the Museo del Prado
Museo del Prado
The Museo del Prado is the main Spanish national art museum, located in central Madrid. It features one of the world's finest collections of European art, from the 12th century to the early 19th century, based on the former Spanish Royal Collection, and unquestionably the best single collection of...
in Madrid, which made him very proud. In gratitude, he donated his best Gris
Juan Gris
José Victoriano González-Pérez , better known as Juan Gris, was a Spanish painter and sculptor who lived and worked in France most of his life...
to the Prado, Portrait of the Artist's Wife from 1916, and a cubist Still Life with Pigeons by Picasso. His only other donation went to the Kunstmuseum Basel
Kunstmuseum Basel
The Kunstmuseum Basel houses the largest and most significant public art collection in Switzerland, and is listed as a heritage site of national significance. Its lineage extends back to the Amerbach Cabinet purchased by the city of Basel in 1661, which made it the first municipally owned museum...
; the Tate Gallery didn't receive anything. Cooper died on 1 April 1984 (Fools' Day), perhaps completely fitting, as he predicted. He left an incomplete catalogue raisonné of Paul Gauguin
Paul Gauguin
Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin was a leading French Post-Impressionist artist. He was an important figure in the Symbolist movement as a painter, sculptor, print-maker, ceramist, and writer...
and his art collection to his adopted son William McCarty Cooper (having adopted him according to French law, in order that nobody else would inherit anything, in particular not his family). His written legacy is kept at the Getty Research Institute
Getty Research Institute
The Getty Research Institute , located at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, California, is "dedicated to furthering knowledge and advancing understanding of the visual arts". A program of the J...
, Los Angeles, CA.
External links
- Obituary: Douglas Cooper. In: Die Zeit, 27 April 1984, Nr. 18
- Monuments Men Foundation: Cooper, Sqdr. Ldr. Douglas, remembrance page for the members of the Royal Air Force Intelligence, British Element, Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives (MFAA)
- Cooper, Douglas, A Biographical Dictionary of Historic Scholars, Museum Professionals and Academic Historians of Art
- Douglas Cooper Papers, 1900-1985. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, California. This collection chronicles Douglas Cooper's long career as critic, curator, and collector, as well his wide circle of associations within the art world.
Publications
- C Denis Freeman, Douglas Cooper: The road to Bordeaux. Harper, New York and London 1941
- Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler (Transl.: Douglas Cooper): Juan Gris : his life and work. Valentin, New York 1947
- Douglas Cooper: William Turner 1775-1851. Les éditions Braun. Paris 1949
- Douglas Cooper (Hg.: Kenneth Clark): Paul Klee. Penguin Books, Middlesex 1949
- Douglas Cooper: Henri Rousseau. [Französisch - Englisch - Deutsch]. Braun/Soho Gallery. Paris/London 1951
- Douglas Cooper (Hsg., Übers.: Paola Calvino): Pastelle von Edgar Degas. Holbein-Verlag, Basel 1952
- Douglas Cooper (Hsg., Ausgew. u. eingel. von Georg Schmidt): Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1955
- Douglas Cooper, R. Wehrli et al.: Masterpieces of French Painting from the Bührle Collection. - The National Gallery - London - 29 September - 5 November 1961 Katalog. Arts Council of Britain, London 1961
- Douglas Cooper: Nicolas de StaëlNicolas de StaëlNicolas de Staël was a painter known for his use of a thick impasto and his highly abstract landscape painting...
, Masters and Movements, Weidenfeld and Nicolson Ltd. London, 1961. - Douglas Cooper: Pablo Picasso Les Déjeuners. Éditions Cercle d'Art, Paris 1962
- Douglas Cooper (Hsg., Einl. von Kenneth Clark, Übers. Ingeborg Ramseger unter Mitarb. von Johanna Manns u. Eva Jantzen.): Berühmte private Kunstsammlungen. Stalling, Oldenburg/Hamburg 1963
- Douglas Cooper (Red.): Georges Braque. Ausstellungskatalog. Haus d. Kunst, München, 18. Oktober bis 15. Dezember 1963
- Douglas Cooper (Einleit.): PICASSO Deux Epoques *. Gemälde 1960-65 und aus den Jahren 1954, 1957, 1944. Mengis + Sticher im Auftrag, Luzern 1966
- Douglas Cooper: Picasso et le Théatre. Éditions Cercle d'Art, Paris 1967
- Douglas Cooper (Red.): Graham Sutherland. Ausstellungskatalog. Haus d. Kunst München, 11. März - 7. Mai 1967; Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, 2. Juni - 30. Juli 1967; Haus am Waldsee Berlin, 11. Aug. - 24. Sept. 1967; Wallraf-Richartz-Museum Köln, 7. Okt. - 20. Nov. 1967
- Douglas Cooper (Hsg.): Große Familiensammlungen. Droemer/Knaur, München/Zürich 1963
- Douglas Cooper (Übers. a. d. Franz. Jean Yves Mock): César. Bodensee-Verlag, Amriswil 1970
- Douglas Cooper: The cubist epoch. Phaidon Press, London 1970
- Douglas Cooper: Juan Gris. Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, Baden-Baden 1974
- Douglas Cooper (Margaret Potter, Juan Gris): Juan Gris. Catalogue Raisonné de l'Oeuvre Peint (établi avec la collaboration de Margaret Potter.). Berggruen, Paris 1977