Douglas Cooper

This article is about the art historian Douglas Cooper. For the brigadier general, see Douglas Hancock Cooper .

Arthur William Douglas Cooper , who also wrote as Douglas Lord (* 1911 in London ; † April 1, 1984 ibid) was a British art historian , critic and art collector . He mainly collected cubist art.

Family background

Ancestors had emigrated to Australia at the beginning of the 19th century and had made a large fortune there, particularly property in Sydney . His great-grandfather moved into parliament in New South Wales and was ennobled as Speaker of the House of New South Wales in 1856 and Baronet of Woollahra in 1863 . Since then he has divided his time between Australia and England, finally relocated there entirely and died in London. Son and grandson also lived there and sold their Australian property in the 1920s, much to Douglas Cooper's annoyance.

His mother came from long-established English nobility. His biographer and longtime partner John Richardson considered Cooper's suffering from the exclusion of his family as an Australian for a certain character trait of his friend, which explains in particular his anglophobia . Cooper himself had never been to Australia and thought it possible that he could have been conceived there on his parents' honeymoon.

education

In the mid-1920s, his learned uncle Gerald Cooper took him on a trip to Monte Carlo , where Cooper saw the Diaghilev ballet; From here his biographer spans the arc to Cooper's late work Picasso et le Théatre . He did not like going to Repton School and then studied in Cambridge for about a year. At the age of 21 he inherited £ 100,000 (around US $ 500,000, a fortune for the time), so that he could study art history at the Sorbonne and in Marburg , which was not possible in Cambridge at the time.

Entry into the art business

In 1933 he bought a gallery in London (Mayor Gallery) and wanted to show works by Picasso , Léger , Miró and Klee in collaboration with Parisian art dealers such as Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler and Pierre Loeb ; this collaboration ended quickly and unfavorably. Cooper was paid off in works of art.

Cooper attributed this failure not least to the conservative politics of the Tate Gallery ; his anger at this, according to Richardson, was the catalyst for building his own collection to show the backwardness of the Tate Gallery. When the Second World War broke out in 1939, he had acquired 137 Cubist works, partly with the help of the collector and dealer GF Reber , some of them masterpieces, and used a third of his inheritance for them.

Military career

Cooper was not suitable for regular duty due to an eye injury and therefore joined a medical unit in Paris at the outbreak of the Second World War , which was organized by the art patron Etienne de Beaumont (who in turn had commissioned works from Picasso and Braque ). His report about the transport of the wounded to Bordeaux , who were sent from there by ship to Plymouth , which he wrote with his passenger and published in 1941 (( The Road to Bordeaux )) , became famous . For this action he received a French award (médaille militaire).

Back in Liverpool , he was arrested as a spy for his French uniform, missing papers and improper behavior, which he never forgave the English. He was then employed as an interrogation specialist in Cairo, where he was enormously successful in snatching secrets from even hardened prisoners, not least because of his ability to speak High German and even dialect. At the same time he enjoyed social life there.

Looted art

After an interlude in Malta , he was transferred to a unit that was supposed to take care of the looted art of the Nazis: Royal Air Force Intelligence, British Element, Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives (MFAA) In doing so, he managed to get through the so-called donors Papers to uncover important entanglements of Paris art dealers, Swiss collectors and German experts and museums, in particular the Folkwang Museum in Essen , in the shifting of Jewish property and degenerate art as well as the construction of the collections of Hitler and Göring (the shipping company Schenker shipped the works of art to Germany and managed correctly Book).

His detailed research into the Swiss art trade during the war was just as surprising for the MFAA military commission of inquiry; It turned out that many dealers and collectors were involved in the trade in works of art stolen by the Nazis. Cooper spent the whole of February 1945 as an envoy from the MFAA and the corresponding organization of the French, interviewing dealers and collectors who had something to do with the Nazis and in particular Theodor Fischer from the Galerie Fischer in Lucerne; Fischer handled the infamous sale of the works of art confiscated in the course of the Degenerate Art campaign in 1939.

He was particularly proud of the appointment of the Swiss Carl Montag , who was one of Hitler's art advisors and who had put together a “private” art collection for the Führer from mostly stolen works and was involved in the liquidation of the Parisian gallery Bernheim-Jeune ; Strangely enough, however, he was released on a higher order. Unimpressed, Cooper arrested him again, only to be passed over again, each time by Winston Churchill , who came to the aid of his old friend and teacher and refused to believe that "good old Monday" could have done anything reprehensible.

Provence

Château de Castille

Arcades of the entrance

After the Second World War, Cooper returned to England, but soon relocated the center of his life to the south of France, mainly because he didn't like his homeland. In the summer of 1950 he acquired and moved into the Château de Castille in Argilliers near Avignon , where he housed his impressive collection, which he continued to expand with modern masters such as Klee and Miró. In the decades that followed, art historians, collectors, dealers and artists visited his home, which had become something of an epicenter of Cubism, of which he was undoubtedly very proud.

Léger and Picasso were regular guests; The latter even became an integral part of his life. He considered Picasso to be the only genius of the 20th century and became an essential patron of the artist. Picasso tried several times to persuade Cooper to leave his castle; However, the latter could not bring himself to do so and finally recommended him in 1958 to acquire Vauvenargues Castle .

author

Cooper published frequently in Burlington Magazine and wrote numerous monographs and catalogs on artists of the 19th century, for example Degas , van Gogh and Renoir , but also on the Cubists he had collected. He was among the first art critics to write about modern art with the same erudition as established painters of the past; before the Second World War he was a pioneer in this regard. After the publication of his catalog for the exhibition The Courtauld Collection (1954), this was particularly recognized by The Times . His most important achievement is probably the catalog of works by Juan Gris , which he completed six years before his death, 40 years after starting work in 1978. From 1957 to 1958 he taught at Oxford as a Slade Professor and in 1961 as a visiting professor at Bryn Mawr and the Courtauld Institute .

Appreciation

Cooper is undoubtedly considered an important figure among art experts of the 20th century, but was controversial because of his argumentative nature and his strong need to be in the spotlight. In addition, he was accused not only of plagiarism and inaccuracies in his literature, but also of "flexible ethics" and "cultivating quarrels as well as friendships".

Cooper was not only a writer but also editor of The Burlington Magazine , also held shares and was a member of the board of directors, yet he constantly tried to urge editor-in-chief Benedict Nicolson to resign. In the 1950s he attacked John Rothenstein , director of the Tate Gallery, for his lack of support for modern art (who, furiously, knocked him down at a party) and tried in vain to get him out of office float. His eccentric temperament didn't even stop at Picasso, who finally excluded him from his circle of friends when he committed sacrilege around 1970 and urged Picasso to legalize his children.

Mishaps

Surprisingly, Cooper was found in 1961 on the edge of a country road outside of Nîmes with multiple stab wounds in his stomach; On the way to the post office in Nîmes, where he was about to send an article to a London newspaper on Picasso's birthday, he made a detour to an infamous neighborhood and picked up a young Algerian fellagha (resistance fighter against the French occupation forces) who was nearby was interned in an open camp. He drove with him to a lonely area, where the boy pulled out a knife and demanded money or life.

As was common in France at the time, Cooper had two purses, one with change and one with large bills. He handed the first one, at which point the robber got angry, asked for more, and finally stepped down. Seriously injured, Cooper dragged himself toward town, surely his paramedic training was useful; through enormous luck, his cries for help were finally heard in this lonely area and he was saved, although he had lost a lot of blood. The wrongdoer was caught claiming he was only defending his innocence.

In 1974 about 20 smaller paintings by Picasso, Braque and Gris were stolen from his castle; Cooper had fired his old housekeeper and lost all respect from the locals. For safety reasons, Cooper then moved to Monte Carlo, where he led a more secluded life. Both incidents were reported in national French and English newspapers.

Age

If Cooper began his career as a rebel in the service of Cubism, in the opinion of his biographer he ended up as a rebel without commission. He poisoned against all varieties of art that came after Cubism, especially the American version, but neither Burlington Magazine nor the Times Literary Supplement were interested in his tirades ("all bark and no bite" - just bark, no bite) to print.

In the summer of 1965, Cooper, in agreement with Picasso, organized a large exhibition on the subject of Picasso et le Théatre in Toulouse and published the book on the subject two years later. Obviously, however, he did not agree with his late work; As a protest against the laudatory review of the old work in the art magazine Connaissance des Arts , he published a letter to the editor after Picasso's death in 1973, which leaves nothing to be desired in terms of clarity:

“I believe I can presume to be among the serious admirers of Picasso's work and to be able to judge it. So I looked at the pictures for a long time. But now these are incoherent graffiti, carried out by a mad old man in the anteroom of death. This had to be said once. Sincerely."

- Douglas Cooper, in: Connaissance des Arts , No. 257, July 1973, reproduced from Painting Against Time , ISBN 978-3-7757-1831-8 , p. 298.

Although he seemed to want to reconcile with the Tate Gallery shortly before his death (in 1983 he organized the Essential Cubism exhibition there ), he has probably never completely overcome his aversion to England. In particular, he thought nothing of the art of his homeland. In a letter to the editor of The Times in 1980, he apodictically stated:

“I can't see anything in the work of any 20th century British artist that would oblige me - judging, of course, on international and perpetual standards of performance - to recognize significant creative talent. In my eyes the work of each of them is mediocre, uninspired and not particularly well done. "

- Douglas Cooper, letter to the editor, The Times (London, United Kingdom), February 28, 1980.

Towards the end of his life he was the first foreigner to be appointed patron of the Prado in Madrid, of which he was very proud. Out of gratitude, he gave the Prado its best gris , the portrait of the artist's wife from 1916, and a Cubist still life with pigeons by Picasso. Besides the Prado, he only bequeathed a few works to the Kunstmuseum Basel ; the Tate Gallery inherited nothing. Cooper died on April 1, 1984 ( Fools' Day ), perhaps aptly as he had predicted. He left an incomplete catalog raisonné of Paul Gauguin and his art collection to his son William McCarty Cooper (whom he had adopted under French law so that no one else could share in his legacy, especially his family). His written estate is held at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles.

Fonts

• with C. Denis Freeman: The road to Bordeaux. Harper, New York and London 1941.
• Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler (translation Douglas Cooper): Juan Gris: his life and work. Valentin, New York 1947.
• William Turner 1775-1851. Les éditions Braun. Paris 1949, DNB 991806298 .
• Paul Klee. Kenneth Clark, ed. Penguin Books, Middlesex 1949.
• Henri Rousseau. [French - English - German]. Braun / Soho Gallery. Paris / London 1951.
• Douglas Cooper (ed., Transl .: Paola Calvino): Pastels by Edgar Degas. Holbein-Verlag, Basel 1952, DNB 450886646 .
• Douglas Cooper (ed., Selected and introduced by Georg Schmidt): Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1955, DNB 455095736 .
• with R. Wehrli et al .: Masterpieces of French Painting from the Bührle Collection. - The National Gallery - London - 29 September - 5 November 1961. Catalog. Arts Council of Britain, London 1961.
• Nicolas de Staël, Masters and Movements. Weidenfeld and Nicolson Ltd. London, 1961.
• Pablo Picasso Les Déjeuners. Éditions Cercle d'Art, Paris 1962.
• Douglas Cooper (Ed., Introduction by Kenneth Clark, Translator Ingeborg Ramseger with the help of Johanna Manns and Eva Jantzen.): Famous private art collections. Stalling, Oldenburg / Hamburg 1963, DNB 452649803 .
• (Red.): Georges Braque. Exhibition catalog. House d. Kunst, Munich, October 18 to December 15, 1963, DNB 450590011 .
• (Introduction): PICASSO Deux Epoques *. Paintings 1960-65 and from 1954, 1957, 1944. Mengis + Sticher commissioned, Lucerne 1966.
• Picasso et le Theater. Éditions Cercle d'Art, Paris 1967.
• (Red.): Graham Sutherland. Exhibition catalog. House d. Art Munich, March 11th - May 7th, 1967; Gemeentemuseum The Hague, June 2 - July 30, 1967; Haus am Waldsee Berlin, August 11th - September 24th, 1967; Wallraf-Richartz-Museum Cologne, October 7th - November 20th, 1967, DNB 720264049 .
• (Ed.): Large family collections. Droemer / Knaur, Munich / Zurich 1963, DNB 456817530 .
• Douglas Cooper (translation from the French Jean Yves Mock): César. Bodensee-Verlag, Amriswil 1970, DNB 450825205 .
• The cubist epoch. Phaidon Press, London 1970
• Juan Gris. Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, Baden-Baden 1974, DNB 740828584 .
• with Margaret Potter, Juan Gris: Juan Gris. Catalog raisonné de l'Oeuvre Peint (établi avec la collaboration de Margaret Potter). Berggruen, Paris 1977 OCLC 5265299 .

literature

• John Richardson: Obituary. In: The Burlington Magazine , Vol. 127, No. 985, April 1985, pp. 228. 230-231.
• John Richardson: The Sorcerer's Apprentice: Picasso, Provence, and Douglas Cooper. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1999, ISBN 978-0-226-71245-1 .
• Dorothy M Kosinski, John Richardson, Basel Public Art Collection: Douglas Cooper and the Masters of Cubism. Kunstmuseum Basel, Basel 1987, ISBN 978-3-7204-0052-7 .
• Werner Spies (ed.): Painting against time. Exhibition catalog. Cantz, Ostfildern 2006, ISBN 978-3-7757-1831-8 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Douglas Cooper in the catalog of the German National Library
• Obituary: Douglas Cooper . In: Die Zeit , April 27, 1984, No. 18.
• Monuments Men Foundation: Cooper, Sqdr. Ldr. Douglas , memorial page for Royal Air Force Intelligence, British Element, Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives (MFAA) staff.
• Cooper, Douglas , In: Dictionary of Art Historians.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Cooper, Douglas . In: Dictionary of Art Historians , accessed August 13, 2010
2. ^ ^{A b} John Richardson: Remembering Douglas Cooper. In: The New York Review of Books , accessed August 13, 2010
3. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i} John Richardson: Obituary , In: The Burlington Magazine , Volume 127, No. 985, April 1985, pp. 228. 230-231.
4. ↑ In the review mentioned below, Frank Whitford describes him as an Australian in 2006 as opposed to the British Roland Penrose.
5. ^ John Richardson: The Sorcerer's Apprentice. ISBN 978-0-226-71245-1 , p. 19.
6. ^ The Sorcerer's Apprentice. Pp. 22-23.
7. ^ The Sorcerer's Apprentice. Pp. 23-24.
8. ^ The Sorcerer's Apprentice. Pp. 26-29, 36-37, 77.
9. ^ The Sorcerer's Apprentice. P. 25; David Patrick Columbia & Jeffrey Hirsch: Anatomy of the Collector ( Memento of the original from August 27, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . In: New York Social Diary. June 1, 2001. Retrieved August 24, 2010. 
10. ^ The Sorcerer's Apprentice. Pp. 33-34.
11. ↑ ^{a b c d} Monuments Men Foundation: Cooper, Sqdr. Ldr. Douglas , memorial page for Royal Air Force Intelligence, British Element, Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives (MFAA) staff.
12. ^ The Sorcerer's Apprentice. Pp. 33-37;
    Hector Feliciano: The Lost Museum: The Nazi Conspiracy to Steal the World's Greatest Works of Art. Basic Books, New York 1997, ISBN 978-0-465-04191-6 , pp. 128-129.
13. ^ The Sorcerer's Apprentice. Pp. 35-36.
14. ↑ Painter and Critic in lunchtime appraisal. In: The Times (London), December 14, 1966.
15. ^ The Sorcerer's Apprentice. P. 243.
16. ↑ "[...] it is not easy to think of another critic who has so consistently applied to modern painting the scholarship normally used in the study of the works of the more distant past." Benefactor of Art: Courtauld and His Collection. Review of The Courtauld Collection, by Douglas Cooper. In: The Times (London), January 23, 1954.
17. ^ Cooper, Douglas in: Dictionary of Art Historians : "Daniel Catton Rich exposed Cooper of plagiarizing Rich's book on Douanier Rousseau (1942), in an article on the artist in the Burlington Magazine. After Cooper's caustic review of a book on Seurat by John Rewald (qv) in 1944, the author noticed similar parallels between his disparaged book and Cooper's 1946 Georges Seurat: Une baignade. Though the matter was settled without official acknowledgment, Cooper had to admit culpability. "Retrieved August 19, 2010.
18. ^ Cooper, Douglas , in: Dictionary of Art Historians : "Cooper certainly had flexible ethics." Retrieved August 19, 2010.
19. ^ Cooper, Douglas In: Dictionary of Art Historians : "Cooper possessed an obstreperous personality, cultivating quarrels as much as friends. The French minister of culture became so jealous of Cooper's collection he refuse to allow the collection to France without Cooper donating some paintings to country. "Retrieved August 19, 2010.
20. ^ Archive Journeys: Tate History. Sir John Rothenstein (1938–1964) , Did you know ?.
21. ^ Rothenstein, John In: Dictionary of Art Historians , accessed August 21, 2010; The Sorcerer's Apprentice. Pp. 158-164.
22. ^ The Sorcerer's Apprentice. Pp. 299, 300; Frank Whitford: Fawning for Britain. In: The Sunday Times London, April 23, 2006, accessed August 9, 2010.
23. ^ Art Collector Found in Road Stabbed. In: The Times (London), October 26, 1961; The Sorcerer's Apprentice. Pp. 283-285.
24. ^ The Sorcerer's Apprentice. Pp. 297-299.
25. ^ The Sorcerer's Apprentice. P. 300.
26. ↑ Probably written in French; his biographer quotes a half-sentence from it: "incoherent doodles done by a frenetic dotard in the anteroom of death." (incoherent doodles of a desperate old man with dementia in the anteroom of death), The Sorcerer's Apprentice. P. 300.
27. ↑ “I can see nothing in the work of any British artist of the twentieth century which obliges me - judging of course, by international and eternal standards of achievement - to recognize a major creative talent. To my eyes, the work of all of them seems mediocre, uninspired and not particularly competent. "
28. ^ The Sorcerer's Apprentice. P. 301.
29. ↑ David Patrick Columbia, Jeffrey Hirsch: Billy; An Epicurean Life Late 20th Century. ( Memento of the original from August 27, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: New York Social Diary. June 1, 2001. Retrieved August 24, 2010. 
30. ^ The Sorcerer's Apprentice. P. 302 ff.