By Adrian Clark and Richard Calvocoressi, with a foreword by David Hockney, Yale University Press, April 2025.
Douglas Cooper (1911-1984) was a pioneering collector of Cubist art, an art historian and one of the most important, and controversial, figures in the international art world of the 20th century.
Born in London into a wealthy English family, whose money had been made in land and trading in 19th century Australia, Cooper built up much of his amazing collection of works by Picasso, Braque, Gris and Léger in the 1930s, using an inheritance from his grandfather. He also trained himself to become a respected, if feared, art historian, his reputation underpinned by his many books, including the catalogue of the Courtauld Collection (1954) and his catalogue raisonné of the work of Juan Gris (1977), together with a long career of reviewing books and exhibitions.
He curated many exhibitions, including ones of Gauguin, Picasso, Braque and two major displays of Cubism (in San Francisco and London). The second of these, The Essential Cubism, held at the Tate Gallery in 1983, was one of the most remarkable accumulations of Cubist art ever assembled.
His reputation in the international art world was as a terrifying, ruthless figure, prepared to say exactly what he thought about the writing of his peers without consideration for whether they were his friends. For many years he created a life for himself in a chateau in the South of France, where he was visited by many leading figures of the 20th century cultural world.
Based on extensive research and full of new material and fresh interpretations, the book focuses on Cooper’s colourful life and significant accomplishments: his financing and directorship of London’s Mayor Gallery as a young man in the 1930s, when he became close to artists such as Francis Bacon, Paul Nash, Henry Moore, Paul Klee, Joan Miro and Max Ernst; his astonishing wartime experience as an ambulance driver in the French army in 1940; his disastrous career in RAF Intelligence, which led to his arrest and trial; his job as a senior Monuments Man, tracking down looted art in Switzerland; his move to Provence in the early 1950s, where he became friendly with Picasso, Braque, Léger, David Hockney, Graham Sutherland and de Staël; and his legendary clashes with leading figures and institutions in the art world. This book is also the definitive account of Cooper’s collecting, art dealing, writing and curating.
Adrian Clark has written the biography and well-known art historian, Richard Calvocoressi, has contributed a section on the art collection. David Hockney has written a foreword.
Contents
| FOREWORD | David Hockney |
| PREFACE | Richard Calvocoressi |
| Part One | |
| INTRODUCTION | Adrian Clark |
| ONE | Family |
| TWO | An incomplete education |
| THREE | Entrees into the art world |
| FOUR | The Mayor Gallery |
| FIVE | Dicovering America |
| SIX | The Road to Bordeaux |
| SEVEN | RAF Intelligence and court martial |
| EIGHT | Becoming a Monuments Man |
| NINE | The Monuments Man amuses himself |
| TEN | Return to the art world |
| ELEVEN | Meeting John Richardson |
| TWELVE | The Chateau de Castille and relations with the Tate |
| THIRTEEN | The early chateau years and split from Richardson |
| FOURTEEN | The stabbing and the middle chateau years |
| FIFTEEN | Billy McCarty |
| SIXTEEN | The theft and leaving the chateau |
| SEVENTEEN | Douglasand women |
| EIGHTEEN | Monaco and death |
| NINETEEN | The fate of the collection |
| Part Two | |
| TWENTY | Douglas Cooper on art, 1935-1961 |
| TWENTY ONE | Douglas Cooper on art, 1962-1984 |
| Part Three | |
| Douglas Cooper as dealer, curator and collector | Richard Calvocoressi |
| EPILOGUE | Reputation Adrian Clark |
Reviews
Publication date is April 2025