Colin Campbell Cooper

Colin Campbell Cooper, Jr. (March 8, 1856 – November 6, 1937) was an American impressionist painter of architectural paintings, especially of skyscrapers in New York City, Philadelphia, and Chicago. An avid traveler, he created many paintings of European and Asian landmarks, as well as natural landscapes, portraits, florals, and interiors.

He studied painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts under Thomas Eakins and at the Académie Julian, the Académie Delécluse and the Académie Vitti. He was elected a member of the National Academy of Design in 1912 and won the gold medal for oil painting and silver medal for watercolor painting at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915. He taught art at Drexel University and served as Dean of painting at the Santa Barbara Community School of Arts. In the 1920s, he turned to writing and wrote plays and his autobiography In These Old Days. He initiated the efforts to create the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. His first wife, Emma Lampert Cooper, was also a painter.

Early life and education Cooper was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on March 8, 1856, into a well-to-do family of English-Irish heritage. He had four older and four younger siblings. His mother, Emily Williams Cooper, whose ancestor emigrated to the U.S. from Weymouth, England, was an amateur painter in watercolors.

Legacy In 1938 Santa Barbara's Faulkner Memorial Art Gallery paid tribute to Cooper's legacy by presenting a memorial exhibition of his work.