Artist profile

Eileen Cooper RA is one of Britain’s most respected printmakers and painters. Cooper began her career at Goldsmiths College in the early 1970s before studying at the Royal College of Art from 1974 to 1977. Her first solo exhibition was held just two years later at the Air Gallery and was followed by further solo shows throughout the UK during the 1980s. Since 1988, regular exhibitions of her work have been held at Benjamin Rhodes Gallery and at Art First in London. Her work has also appeared in many group exhibitions, including New Contemporaries in 1974 and 1976, Hayward Annual in 1982, John Moores XV in 1986 and New British Painting, held at the Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, in the United States.

Cooper's work is rooted in a figurative tradition and makes use of bold linearity and formal composition. For many years Cooper was a Visiting Lecturer at the Royal College of Art, where she was made a Fellow in 2006, and City & Guilds of London Art School, before becoming Head of Printmaking here at the Royal Academy Schools. In 2011, she was the first ever woman to be elected Keeper becoming the first female officer in the Academy’s long history.

Photo: Eamonn McCabe