Eileen Cooper:Ambivalence and Desire

Eileen Cooper’s practice encompasses themes of fertility, sexuality, motherhood, life and death. Cooper’s work is centred on the female figure, animals and objects enter Cooper’s compositions, often playing symbolic or totemic roles. Her motif-filled imagery has often been described as magical realism, although she has cited Indian, Persian and Egyptian art as influences on her paintings. Her rich and expressionistic use of colour, as well as her use of strong and simplified line has been likened to the works of Henri Matisse and Paul Gauguin, as well as to Expressionists Emil Nolde and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner.

Eileen Cooper studied at Goldsmiths School of Art from 1971 until 1974, before completing an MA in painting at the Royal College of Art in 1977. She rose to prominence as an artist in the 1980s, during which time she also held teaching posts at both St Martins School of Art and the Royal Academy Schools. She became a Royal Academician in 2001 and served as Keeper of the Royal Academy between 2010 and 2017.

Cooper has been the subject of numerous publications, including Eileen Cooper: A Woman’s Skin by Meredith M Hale and Philip Lindley, and Eileen Cooper: Between the Lines by Martin Gayford. She has had numerous international exhibitions, including solo exhibitions at the Royal Academy of Arts and Dulwich Picture Gallery, London. Cooper curated and co-ordinated the Royal Academy of Arts’ 249th annual Summer Exhibition in 2017. Her work is held in several important collections including Tate, The National Portrait Gallery, The Arts Council Britain, the Victoria and Albert Museum and The British Museum, London. In 2016, Cooper was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for her services to Art and Art Education. She is an Honorary Fellow at Murray Edwards College at the University of Cambridge, and the Royal College of Art; and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Southampton Solent University in 2014.

In 2022, Leicester Museum and Art Gallery held Parallel Lines: Eileen Cooper and Leicester’s Art Collection, a major survey exhibition that brought together – for the first time – works created throughout Cooper’s career presented in conversation with paintings, drawings, prints, ceramics and sculpture from Leicester Museum and Art Gallery’s permanent collection. In November 2023 she will be included in Women in Revolt: Art and Activism in the UK 1970-1990 at Tate Britain.

Cooper lives and works in London.