Isabel Cooper

Isabel Cooper Mahaffie (August 22, 1892 – 1984) was an American artist known for her work depicting animals. She was a staff artist for the New York Zoological Association (currently the Wildlife Conservation Society) who participated in multiple research expeditions, such as the Arcturus expedition.

Biography Cooper was born on August 22, 1892, in Tacoma, Washington. She went to Bryn Mawr College from 1909 until 1910 and there she played multiple sports, including hockey, basketball, and water polo. interior decorating, theater set designing, and rug making. She met William Beebe, the head of the Department of Tropical Research at the New York Zoological Society,

She died in Bethesda, Maryland in 1984.

Work as an artist

Following the 1924 expedition to British Guiana, Cooper wrote an article for The Atlantic Monthly about the challenges she faced in painting animals while in the jungle, and the delight she had in her unconventional job. In the article she described the challenges of painting live animals, some of which managed to escape from their cages while she was working. She later described her job as "the most peculiar job in the world".

Cooper participated in Beebe's 1925 Arcturus expedition that sailed from New York City on February 11, 1925. The expedition went from New York to the Sargasso Sea to the Galápagos Islands, and then returned to New York on July 30, 1925. Even though Cooper got seasick on boats, The news coverage included multiple pictures of Cooper and the other people on board.

Multiple women were part of the research crew including Marie Poland Fish, Ruth Rose, Helen Damrosch Tee-Van, and Lillian Segal.

Cooper ultimately provided the illustrations for Beebe's book The Arcturus Adventure, and The New York Times reported "Isabel Cooper's colored plates are gorgeous." She also provided illustration for scientific papers on crustaceans, and illustrated David goes voyaging, the children's book about the twelve-year old David Putnam's participation in the Arcturus expedition.

Cooper's later artistic works include painting a jungle-themed guest room in the Rye, New York home of George Putnam and Dorothy Binney Palmer. In 1926 there was an exhibit of Cooper's watercolors at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. From 1927 until 1931 she made art plates for Encyclopedia Britannica

Awards and honors In 1922 she was named an honorary life member of the New York Zoological Society. and Paectes isabel.