Emma Lampert Cooper

Emma Lampert Cooper (February 24, 1855 – July 30, 1920) was a painter from Rochester, New York, described as "a painter of exceptional ability". She studied in Rochester, New York, in New York City under William Merritt Chase, Paris at the Académie Delécluse and in the Netherlands under Hein Kever. Cooper won awards at several World's Expositions, taught art and was an art director. She met her husband, Colin Campbell Cooper in the Netherlands and the two traveled, painted and exhibited their works together.

Early life Emma Esther Lampert was born in Nunda, New York, on February 24, 1855, to Henry and Jenette (Smith) Lampert. Her father registered for the draft for the American Civil War in June 1863. He died June 10, 1880.

Education and early career Emma graduated from Wells College in Aurora, NY, in 1875. Classes at that time were very small and college life was centered around Old Main. The students lived in pairs in Old Main. Cooper was a founding member of the eastern association of Wells College Alumni. Her classmates remember Emma as being a fine skater, who once skated across Cayuga Lake. She did it at much surprise and worry of the college staff. Following her skating episode, Emma drove across the lake with a horse and cutter. It was the first time a horse and cutter made it across the lake in Aurora.

1877 The Rochester Club was formed, and Cooper was its vice president, marking the beginning of a long relationship with the club. She held the positions of vice president, secretary, and president and was a member until 1895. From 1870 to 1886, Cooper had a studio in the historic power buildings in Rochester, NY. Within Rochester, she had a "notable influence" on the city's art community. She then returned to New York City to study at the Art Students League and Cooper Union under William Merritt Chase. Cooper studied in Paris at the Académie Delécluse for 18 months in the mid-1880s and under Hein Kever in the Netherlands in 1891.

Educator From 1891 to 1893, Cooper taught painting and was the Art Director at the Clifton Springs, NY, foster school opened between 1876 and 1885. From 1893 to 1897, Cooper taught at the Mechanic's Institute of The Rochester Institute of Technology.

Marriage In 1897, while working and living in Dordrecht, she met painter Colin Campbell Cooper. They married on June 9, 1897, in Rochester, New York. The couple traveled abroad between 1898 and 1902, living in the Laren artist colony in the Netherlands for one year. Then, they primarily lived in New York City, and also traveled extensively to Europe and her hometown, Rochester. They were in India in 1913, reputedly both having been commissioned by a patroness from the United States to create paintings. The works from that trip were exhibited in Rochester, New York in 1915. Because of her work in the United States and abroad, she was considered knowledgeable of the international art community. and the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta in 1895. and another bronze medal. Cooper's paintings were exhibited with her husband' in shows in Rochester, Chicago, New York and Philadelphia, and Buffalo between 1902 and 1910. In 1915 she showed paintings of India alongside works by Alice Schille, Adelaide Deming and Helen Watson Phelps in New York.

Cooper became an artist during the 19th century when there was a significant number of women who became successful, educated artists, a rarity before that time, except for a few like Angelica Kauffman and Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun (1755–1842). The emerging women artists created works with a different perspective than men, challenged the limited concepts of femininity and created a genre of floral-female landscape paintings, in which "the artist placed one woman or more in a flower garden setting and manipulated composition, color, texture and form to make the women look as much like flowers as possible." These artists were among the educated, sophisticated "New Women" beginning in the late 19th century, whose influence was largely ignored by art scholars. Strong Museum in Rochester, New York; Weatherspoon Art Museum in Greensboro, North Carolina; and Wells College in Aurora, New York.

Carpathia The couple was among the first class passengers on the Cunard liner en route from New York to Gibraltar in April 1912, when it picked up the survivors of the . They aided in the rescue of survivors and shared their room and took care of survivor Renee Harris, the wife of theatre manager Henry B. Harris, who had perished in the sinking. Colin Campbell Cooper subsequently made several paintings of the Titanic. at home of her sister, Mrs. John Steele in Pittsford, New York on July 30. She is buried in Mount Hope Cemetery in Rochester, New York.

In January 1940, a retrospective exhibition of her works was held at George H. Brodhead Fine Arts in Rochester.

Works

Europe or North America

A Corner in the Studio, oil, 1882–1897 Adobe House, oil, , private collection Crooked Houses, oil,

Bazaar at Little Agra Bombay Street Candy bazaar, Agra Ceylon House Servant Chauk bazaar, Lucknow Delhi Fruit Stand Dye house at Udaipur Entrance to a Temple, Jaipur Holy Man's Tomb at Agra, oil, , Wells College, Aurora, New York Leogryphs, Rangood, Burma, water color Native quarter, Bombay, water color Snake charmer Street corner, Udaipur Street of dye houses, Little Agra Temple at Little Agra Tomb at Agra, water color Water carrier