Thomas Sidney Cooper, by Thomas Sidney Cooper

Thomas Sidney Cooper (26 September 18037 February 1902) was an English

landscape painter Landscape painting, also known as landscape art, is the depiction of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests, especially where the main subject is a wide view—with its elements arranged into a coherent composi ...

noted for his images of cattle and farm animals.

Biography

Thomas Sidney Cooper was born in St Peter's Street in

Canterbury Canterbury (, ) is a cathedral city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, situated in the heart of the City of Canterbury local government district of Kent, England. It lies on the River Stour. The Archbishop of Canterbury is the primate of t ...

, Kent, and as a small child he began to show strong artistic inclinations, but the circumstances of his family did not allow him to receive any systematic training. By the time he was twelve years old, he was working in the shop of a coach painter. Later he obtained a job as a scene painter; and he alternated between these two occupations for about eight years. He still felt a desire to become an artist, and all his spare moments were spent drawing and painting from nature. At the age of twenty he went to London, drew for a while in the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

, and was admitted as a student of the

Royal Academy The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its pur ...

. He then returned to Canterbury, where he was able to earn a living as a drawing-master and by the sale of sketches and drawings. In 1827 he settled in

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

and married; there he met

Eugène Joseph Verboeckhoven Eugène Joseph Verboeckhoven (9 June 1798 – 19 January 1881), a Belgian painter, was born at Warneton in West Flanders. He was a painter, a sculptor, an etcher, an engraver, and a lithographer of animals, animated landscapes, and portra ...

. Because of the

Belgian Revolution The Belgian Revolution (, ) was the conflict which led to the secession of the southern provinces (mainly the former Southern Netherlands) from the United Kingdom of the Netherlands and the establishment of an independent Kingdom of Belgium. T ...

he returned to London, and by showing his first picture at the Royal Academy (1833) began an unprecedentedly prolonged career as an exhibitor. When the competition was announced for the decoration for the new

Houses of Parliament The Palace of Westminster serves as the meeting place for both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Informally known as the Houses of Parliament, the Palace lies on the north ban ...

, to be held at

Westminster Hall The Palace of Westminster serves as the meeting place for both the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons and the House of Lords, the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Informally known as the Houses of Parli ...

in 1847, Cooper submitted ''The Defeat of Kellermann's Cuirassiers and Carabiniers by Somerset's Cavalry Brigade at Waterloo, June 18, 1815'', without success. In order to complete the picture, the artist used Siborne's model of the battlefield then on exhibition in London, while a friend in

sent him breastplates worn by the various cavalry regiments, and a trooper of the

Life Guards Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for growth, reaction to stimuli, metabolism, energy transf ...

acted as a model. He is mainly associated with pictures of cattle or sheep, a fact that earned him the epithet "Cow Cooper". Cooper collaborated between 1847 and 1870 with

Frederick Richard Lee Frederick Richard Lee (10 June 1798 in Barnstaple, Devon – 5 June 1879 in Vleesch Bank, South Africa) was an English artist. Life 1862 painting of the Rock of Gibraltar with Windmill Hill Barracks in view Lee was the son of Thomas Lee of ...

R.A. on several paintings, Lee undertaking the landscapes, and Cooper adding animals to complete the scene. He was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy (ARA) in 1845 and Royal Academician (RA) on 22 June 1867. The oldest member of the

Royal Academy of Arts The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its pur ...

at the time of the accession of King

Edward VII Edward VII (Albert Edward; 9 November 1841 – 6 May 1910) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Emperor of India, from 22 January 1901 until Death and state funeral of Edward VII, his death in 1910. The second chil ...

in 1901, Cooper was in July 1901 received by the King in audience, and appointed a Commander of the

Royal Victorian Order The Royal Victorian Order (french: Ordre royal de Victoria) is a dynastic order of knighthood established in 1896 by Queen Victoria. It recognises distinguished personal service to the British monarch, Canadian monarch, Australian monarch, o ...

(CVO). He was a great philanthropist in Canterbury, and used some of his wealth to distribute bread and coal to the poor at Christmas. The Alms Houses in Chantry Lane Canterbury are wrongly attributed to him as they were donated by Thomas Sankey Cooper and his brother Henry. Most notably in 1882 he developed his private art lessons into a full-fledged art school in Canterbury, located at his home and studio in St Peter's Street. Originally called the Canterbury Sidney Cooper School of Art, Cooper's art school is still in existence although it is now called the

University for the Creative Arts The University for the Creative Arts is a specialist art and design university in the south of England. It was formed in 2005 as University College for the Creative Arts at Canterbury, Epsom, Farnham, Maidstone and Rochester when the Kent Ins ...

. Amongst Cooper's more well-known students was Mary Tourtel, creator and illustrator of the

Rupert Bear Rupert Bear is a British children's comic strip character and franchise created by artist Mary Tourtel and first appearing in the ''Daily Express'' newspaper on 8 November 1920. Rupert's initial purpose was to win sales from the rival ''D ...

books for children. He wrote his reminiscences, under the title of ''My Life'', in 1890. The largest public collection of Cooper paintings is owned by Canterbury City Council and housed at the Beaney House of Art & Knowledge in Canterbury. Examples are also held by the

Tate Gallery Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

, London, and the

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...

, London, and other public collections, mainly in Britain.

Selected paintings

*''Milking Time'' (1834) *''A Summer's Noon'' (1836) *''A Drover's Halt on the Fells'' (1838) *''A Group in the Meadows'' (1845) *''Waterloo, the defeat of Kellerman's Cuirassiers'' (1847) *''The Shepherd's Sabbath'' (1866) *''Milking Time in the Meadow''Milking Time in the Meadows
/ref> *''The Monarch of the Meadows'' (1873) *''Separated but not Divorced'' (1874) *''Isaac's Substitute'' (1880) *''Pushing off for Tilbury Fort'' (1884) *''Cattle and Sheep in a Landscape'' (1888) *''On a Farm in East Kent'' (1889) *''Return to the Farm, Milking Time'' (1897)

Notes

References

* Sartin, Stephen (1976). ''Thomas Sidney Cooper, C.V.O., R.A., 1803-1902.'' Leigh-on-Sea: F. Lewis. * Westwood, Kenneth J. (2011) ''Thomas Sidney Cooper C.V.O, R.A. His Life and Work.'' 2 vols. Barrington, David Leathers Publishing. Attribution: *

External links

*
Paintings by T S Cooper
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Paintings by T S Cooper
(Art Renewal Center Museum) {{DEFAULTSORT:Cooper, Thomas Sidney 1803 births 1902 deaths Royal Academicians People from Canterbury 19th-century English painters English male painters English landscape painters Animal artists 19th-century English male artists

Biography

Selected paintings

See also

Notes

References

External links