Lynne Cohen (July 3, 1944 – May 12, 2014) was an

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

photographer A photographer (the Greek language, Greek φῶς (''phos''), meaning "light", and γραφή (''graphê''), meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing with light") is a person who makes photographs. Duties and types of photographe ...

Life

Born in

Racine, Wisconsin Racine ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Racine County, Wisconsin, United States. It is located on the shore of Lake Michigan at the mouth of the Root River. Racine is situated 22 miles (35 km) south of Milwaukee and approximately 60 ...

, Cohen was educated in

printmaking Printmaking is the process of creating artworks by printing, normally on paper, but also on fabric, wood, metal, and other surfaces. "Traditional printmaking" normally covers only the process of creating prints using a hand processed techniq ...

and

sculpture Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

at the

University of Wisconsin A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...

,The Canada Council for the Arts - Lynne Cohen
Accessed March 10, 2012. archived at

Madison, Wisconsin Madison is the county seat of Dane County and the capital city of the U.S. state of Wisconsin. As of the 2020 census the population was 269,840, making it the second-largest city in Wisconsin by population, after Milwaukee, and the 80th-lar ...

, and in

Ann Arbor Anne, alternatively spelled Ann, is a form of the Latin female given name Anna (name), Anna. This in turn is a representation of the Hebrew Hannah (given name), Hannah, which means 'favour' or 'grace'. Related names include Annie (given name), ...

and

Eastern Michigan University Eastern Michigan University (EMU, Eastern Michigan or simply Eastern), is a public research university in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Founded in 1849 as Michigan State Normal School, the school was the fourth normal school established in the United Sta ...

Ypsilanti, Michigan Ypsilanti (), commonly shortened to Ypsi, is a city in Washtenaw County in the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2020 census, the city's population was 20,648. The city is bounded to the north by Superior Township and on the west, south, and ...

. She studied for a year at the

Slade School of Fine Art The UCL Slade School of Fine Art (informally The Slade) is the art school of University College London (UCL) and is based in London, England. It has been ranked as the UK's top art and design educational institution. The school is organised as ...

in London, England. Cohen lived and worked in

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

beginning in 1973, initially in

Ottawa Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core ...

, and in

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-most populous city in Canada and List of towns in Quebec, most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian ...

from 2005 until 2014. She taught at several institutions, primarily

(1968-1973),

Algonquin College Algonquin College of Applied Arts and Technology is a publicly funded English-language college located in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The college serves the National Capital Region and the outlying areas of Eastern Ontario, Western Quebec, and Upst ...

(1973-1975), and the

University of Ottawa The University of Ottawa (french: Université d'Ottawa), often referred to as uOttawa or U of O, is a bilingual public research university in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is located on directly to the northeast of Downtown Ottawa ...

(1974-2005). Cohen died of

lung cancer Lung cancer, also known as lung carcinoma (since about 98–99% of all lung cancers are carcinomas), is a malignant lung tumor characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissue (biology), tissues of the lung. Lung carcinomas derive from tran ...

at the age of 69 on May 12, 2014, in the

palliative care Palliative care (derived from the Latin root , or 'to cloak') is an interdisciplinary medical caregiving approach aimed at optimizing quality of life and mitigating suffering among people with serious, complex, and often terminal illnesses. Wit ...

unit at

McGill University Health Centre The McGill University Health Centre (MUHC; french: Centre universitaire de santé McGill) is one of two major healthcare networks in the city of Montreal, Quebec. It is affiliated with McGill University and is one of the largest medical complex in ...

, Quebec, Canada. In accordance with her personal wishes, no funeral service was held.

Work

Cohen was known for her photographs of empty institutional interiors: living rooms, public halls, retirement homes, laboratories, offices, showrooms, shooting ranges, factories, spas, and military installations. Despite this interest in living and working spaces, Cohen's photographs are usually devoid of human presence. She photographed using an 8 x 10"

view camera A view camera is a large-format camera in which the lens forms an inverted image on a ground-glass screen directly at the film plane. The image is viewed and then the glass screen is replaced with the film, and thus the film is exposed to exact ...

, allowing her to capture great detail, and create very large prints beginning in the mid-eighties. Her work has been published in catalogues such as ''Occupied Territory'' (1987) and ''No Man's Land'' (2001). In one of her last monographs, Cohen described a major goal in her work, a "long-standing preoccupation with formal, intellectual and ideological camouflage."

Exhibitions

Cohen's work has been featured in well over 100 solo exhibitions, as well as numerous two- and three-person exhibitions. Solo exhibitions of her work have been held in Canada at the

National Gallery of Canada The National Gallery of Canada (french: Musée des beaux-arts du Canada), located in the capital city of Ottawa, Ontario, is Canada's national art museum. The museum's building takes up , with of space used for exhibiting art. It is one of the l ...

;

Art Gallery of Ontario The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO; french: Musée des beaux-arts de l'Ontario) is an art museum in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The museum is located in the Grange Park neighbourhood of downtown Toronto, on Dundas Street West between McCaul and Beve ...

, Toronto;

McCord Museum The McCord Stewart Museum (french: Musée McCord Stewart) is a public research and teaching museum dedicated to the preservation, study, diffusion, and appreciation of Canadian history. The museum, whose full name is McCord Museum of Canadian His ...

, Montreal;

Design Exchange The Design Exchange (DX) is a Canadian event venue. It is located in Toronto's financial district in the historical Toronto Stock Exchange building, that was incorporated into a skyscraper in 1991, the Toronto-Dominion Centre (222 Bay Street). Th ...

, Toronto; Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal; and

Presentation House Gallery The Polygon Gallery (formerly known as the Presentation House Gallery) is an art gallery in North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atla ...

, Vancouver; as well as internationally at the

Museum für Gestaltung A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these i ...

, Zurich;

Chinati Foundation The Chinati Foundation/La Fundación Chinati is a contemporary art museum located in Marfa, Texas, and based upon the ideas of its founder, artist Donald Judd. Mission The specific intention of Chinati is to preserve and present to the public perm ...

, Marfa, Texas;

FRAC Frac or FRAC may refer to: * Frac or fraccing, short name for Hydraulic fracturing, a method for extracting oil and natural gas * FRAC Act, United States legislation proposed in 2009 to regulate hydraulic fracturing * Frac module, a format for ...

, Limousin, Limoges; Museum voor Fotografie, Antwerp; Centro de Fotografía, Salamanca; Musée de l'Elysée, Lausanne; Image/Imatge, Orthez, France; Museum für Photographie, Braunschweig; Fototeca, Havana; Le Point du Jour, Cherbourg-Octeville; Fundació Mapfre, Madrid, Córdoba; Bilbao, Museum of Contemporary Art; UMass, Amherst; and at the Centro de la Imagen, Mexico City. Since her death, other substantial shows of her work have been mounted at Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery, Ontario,

Winnipeg Art Gallery The Winnipeg Art Gallery (WAG) is an art museum in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Its permanent collection includes over 24,000 works from Canadian, Indigenous Canadian, and international artists. The museum also holds the world's largest collect ...

Ottawa Art Gallery The Ottawa Art Gallery (OAG) is a municipal gallery in Ottawa, Ontario that opened in 1988 at Arts Court. The gallery has a permanent collection of over one thousand works, houses the City of Ottawa-owned Firestone Collection of Canadian Art, and ...

, Museo Universidad de Navarra, Pamplona, and the

Burnaby Art Gallery The Burnaby Art Gallery (abbreviated as BAG) is an art museum in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada. The museum is located on the northern periphery of Deer Lake Park, situated off of Deer Lake Avenue. The museum occupies Fairacres Mansion, a histor ...

Awards

Cohen was the recipient of numerous awards and prizes for her work. In 2005, Cohen was the recipient of the

Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts The Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts are annual awards for achievements in visual and media arts in Canada. Up to eight awards are presented annually with the prize amount is $25,000 Created in 2000 by then Governor General Adrie ...

. She was nominated for the Grange Prize,

, Toronto in 2009. In 2011, she was the recipient of the inaugural

Scotiabank Photography Award The Scotiabank Photography Award is a annual Canadian photography award. Two runners-up each receive . In addition to the cash prize, the prize consists of a solo-exhibition of their work and the publication of a book about the work. It is intende ...

Public collections

Cohen's work is represented in the collections of over 50 public institutions. In Canada these include the

; th
Art Museum at the University of Toronto

Canada Council Art Bank

Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal The Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal (MACM) is a contemporary art museum in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is located on the Place des festivals in the Quartier des spectacles and is part of the Place des Arts complex. Founded in 1964, it is ...

;

Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec The Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec ( en, National Museum of Fine Arts of Quebec), abbreviated as MNBAQ, is an art museum in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada. The museum is situated in Battlefield Park and is a complex consisting of four bui ...

;

Canadian Centre for Architecture The Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA; french: Centre Canadien d'Architecture) is a Architecture museum, museum of architecture and research centre in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is located at 1920, rue Baile (1920, Baile Street), between r ...

, Montreal; and the

Walter Phillips Gallery The Walter Phillips Gallery (WPG) is a contemporary art gallery in Banff, Alberta. It was established in 1976 as a part of The Banff Centre in Banff National Park. History and mission Walter J. Phillips was a printmaker and painter, from the ...

, Banff. Internationally, her work is held in the collections of the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris;

Kunsthaus Zurich Kunsthaus (German meaning "art house") may refer to: *Kunsthaus Graz *Kunsthaus Tacheles *KunstHausWien *Kunsthaus Zürich See also * Art gallery * Kunsthalle A kunsthalle is a facility that mounts temporary art exhibitions, similar to an art ...

;

New Orleans Museum of Art The New Orleans Museum of Art (or NOMA) is the oldest fine arts museum in the city of New Orleans. It is situated within City Park, a short distance from the intersection of Carrollton Avenue and Esplanade Avenue, and near the terminus of the ...

, New Orleans;

Center for Creative Photography The Center for Creative Photography (CCP), established in 1975 and located on the University of Arizona's Tucson campus, is a research facility and archival repository containing the full archives of over sixty of the most famous American pho ...

, Tucson;

Centre Georges Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the Centre national d'art et de culture Georges-Pompidou ( en, National Georges Pompidou Centre of Art and Culture), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English, is a complex building in the Beaubourg area of ...

, Paris; Museo Universidad de Navarra, Pamplona;

George Eastman Museum The George Eastman Museum, also referred to as ''George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film'', the world's oldest museum dedicated to photography and one of the world's oldest film archives, opened to the public in 1949 in ...

, Rochester, New York;

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 patr ...

, Essen; the

Princeton University Art Museum The Princeton University Art Museum (PUAM) is the Princeton University gallery of art, located in Princeton, New Jersey. With a collecting history that began in 1755, the museum was formally established in 1882, and now houses over 113,000 works o ...

; and the

Tate Modern Tate Modern is an art gallery located in London. It houses the United Kingdom's national collection of international modern and contemporary art, and forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It is ...

, amongst others.

References

Bibliography

*Cohen, Lynne and Francois Tourneux
''Faux Indices''
Montréal: Musée d'Art Contemporain, 2013. *Cohen, Lynne.
Almas Gemelas
', Museo Universidad de Navarra, Pamplona, 2012. *Cohen, Lynne
Occupied Territory
New York: Aperture, 2012. *Cohen, Lynne and Marie de Brugerolle.
''Lynne Cohen''
Montréal: Dazibao, 2011. *Cohen, Lynne. ''Cover'', Le Point du Jour, Paris/Cherbourg, 2009. *Cohen, Lynne
Camouflage
Cherbourg: Point du jour, 2005. *Thomas, Ann
''No Man's Land: The Photography of Lynne Cohen"''
Thames & Hudson, 2001. *Cohen, Lynne, Fonds Regional d'Art Contemporain de Limousin, Hôtel des Arts. *Cohen, Lynne.
Lynne Cohen: l'endroit du decor = lost and found
'. Paris: Hôtel des Arts, 1992. *Lamoureux, Johanne.
Stages Without Wings
', Art Gallery of York University,1992 *de Duve, Thierry. Lynne Cohen. Brussels: Edition Galerie Gokelaere & Janssen, 1990.

External links

*
Olga Korper Gallery
* ttp://www.cnap.fr/lynne-cohen-model-living-room-1978-1984 Centre national des arts plastiques, Francebr>Florida Museum of Photographic Arts - The Art of Lynne Cohen
archived at

at the

, Ottawa, Ontario {{DEFAULTSORT:Cohen, Lynne 1944 births 2014 deaths American photographers Canadian photographers Canadian women photographers American expatriates in Canada People from Racine, Wisconsin Artists from Montreal Canadian women artists Deaths from lung cancer Eastern Michigan University faculty University of Ottawa faculty University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni Eastern Michigan University alumni Artists from Wisconsin Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts winners 20th-century American women photographers 20th-century American photographers American women academics 21st-century American women