Later Art
Unlike many of the child artists of Carrolup, Cooper continued painting into adulthood. After leaving school he was briefly engaged as a commercial artist in Perth before moving back to Carrolup to work as a farm worker.
In 1952 Cooper was sentenced to four years jail for manslaughter, the first of a string of jail terms.
In the mid 1950s he had a brief stint in Victoria working for Bill Onus' Aboriginal souvenir business and is considered to have influenced the artistic style of Bill's son, Lin Onus.
During the 1960s with assistance from the Victorian Aborigines Advancement League Cooper was a frequent exhibitor in Victorian galleries. His use of landscapes had by this stage become his signature style.
During a stint in Fremantle Prison in 1976 he was the illustrator of Mary Durack's Yagan of the Bibbulmun, a work of juvenile fiction. While at Fremantle he also contributed a work depicting the Stations of the Cross for a church in Mount Barker. He served as a teacher for a group of artists at Fremantle Prison including Goldie Kelly and Swag Taylor.
For a time he also worked as chauffeur to the Director of Aboriginal Welfare in Melbourne.
Read more about this topic: Revel Cooper
Famous quotes containing the word art:
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—Bible: Hebrew Song of Solomon 4:1.
“There is no mystery in a looking glass until someone looks into it. Then, though it remains the same glass, it presents a different face to each man who holds it in front of him. The same is true of a work of art. It has no proper existence as art until someone is reflected in it—and no two will ever be reflected in the same way. However much we all see in common in such a work, at the center we behold a fragment of our own soul, and the greater the art the greater the fragment.”
—Harold C. Goddard (1878–1950)