Robert Cottingham (born 1935 in

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

) is an American artist known for his paintings and prints of urban American landscapes showing building facades, neon signs, movie marquees, railroad heralds and shop fronts.Robert Cottingham (b. 1935, Brooklyn, New York)
at the Guggenheim New York Although often considered one of the most important

photorealist Photorealism is a genre of art that encompasses painting, drawing and other graphic media, in which an artist studies a photograph and then attempts to reproduce the image as realistically as possible in another medium. Although the term ca ...

painters, Cottingham rejects the label of being a photorealist. He rather sees himself as a realist painter working in a long tradition of American vernacular scenes in the line of the likes of Stuart Davis,

Charles Demuth Charles Henry Buckius Demuth (November 8, 1883 – October 23, 1935) was an American painter who specialized in watercolors and turned to oils late in his career, developing a style of painting known as Precisionism. "Search the history of Ame ...

Edward Hopper Edward Hopper (July 22, 1882 – May 15, 1967) was an American realist painter and printmaker. While he is widely known for his oil paintings, he was equally proficient as a watercolorist and printmaker in etching. Hopper created subdued drama ...

and Charles Sheeler. Cottingham regards his works as no mere painterly translations of photographs or reproductions of reality since he often changes the words in his facades to alter the meaning of the subject. His primary interest lies in the subject matter — the so-called

Americana Americana may refer to: *Americana (music), a genre or style of American music *Americana (culture), artifacts of the culture of the United States Film, radio and television * ''Americana'' (1992 TV series), a documentary series presented by J ...

. Cottingham studied art at Brooklyn's Pratt Institute and started his career in advertising. After relocating to Los Angeles for work, he began to commit seriously to painting. In 1968, he ended his advertising career and devoted himself full-time to painting. In the late 1960s, he started using photography in his painting practice. His first solo show was in 1971 at the OK Harris Gallery in New York.Photorealism by Louis K. Meisel. Abradale/Abrams, New York, NY, (1989). In 1990, he was elected into the

National Academy of Design The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, and others "to promote the f ...

as an Associate Academician, and became a full Academician in 1994. A retrospective of Cottingham's work took place at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in 1998.

Notes

1935 births Living people 20th-century American painters American male painters Artists from Brooklyn Painters from New York City 20th-century American male artists National Academy of Design members {{US-painter-stub