The English painter Alfred Heaton Cooper was born in the small town of Halliwall in England into a large but poor family. He was one of six children. His parents were simple mill workers. Nevertheless Cooper achieved a good degree and was able to earn his living as an employee at first.
However, this increase in his living conditions was not enough for the young and vivacious Cooper. He was drawn out of the tranquil small town into the big city of London, which was already the most important place for art and culture in England at that time. He quickly decided to study art with George Clausen. Here he learned how to work with oil and watercolours. His fine sense of colour and light opened up the world of landscape painting, which was to become his artistic home. But despite his good studies and the hustle and bustle of the big city, Cooper longed for more. He finished his studies prematurely and travelled to cities in Europe and Morocco. Fascinated by the rural lifestyle of the Sogne region and a Norwegian woman named Mathilde, who became his wife a little later, he finally settled in Norway. In the north of Norway he finally moved into a permanent studio on the Balestrand Fjord.
But the cold, the darkness and the hard winter gave him a hard time. Once again Cooper moved away only a few years after his arrival in Norway. After years of travelling and searching, he finally returned to his home country, where he stayed for the rest of his life. Here he believed to have found a market for his works: Tourism was brisk and Cooper profited from it. The motifs of his watercolours often show the beautiful nature of his homeland or dreamy scenes from the Norwegian fjords. The illustrations that Cooper created for several travel guides were also full of vividness. His son William Heaton Cooper took his father as a model and became a landscape painter as well. The family business founded by the Coopers still exists today. The Heaton Cooper Studio in the town of Grasmere is an art gallery and small shop.
The English painter Alfred Heaton Cooper was born in the small town of Halliwall in England into a large but poor family. He was one of six children. His parents were simple mill workers. Nevertheless Cooper achieved a good degree and was able to earn his living as an employee at first.
However, this increase in his living conditions was not enough for the young and vivacious Cooper. He was drawn out of the tranquil small town into the big city of London, which was already the most important place for art and culture in England at that time. He quickly decided to study art with George Clausen. Here he learned how to work with oil and watercolours. His fine sense of colour and light opened up the world of landscape painting, which was to become his artistic home. But despite his good studies and the hustle and bustle of the big city, Cooper longed for more. He finished his studies prematurely and travelled to cities in Europe and Morocco. Fascinated by the rural lifestyle of the Sogne region and a Norwegian woman named Mathilde, who became his wife a little later, he finally settled in Norway. In the north of Norway he finally moved into a permanent studio on the Balestrand Fjord.
But the cold, the darkness and the hard winter gave him a hard time. Once again Cooper moved away only a few years after his arrival in Norway. After years of travelling and searching, he finally returned to his home country, where he stayed for the rest of his life. Here he believed to have found a market for his works: Tourism was brisk and Cooper profited from it. The motifs of his watercolours often show the beautiful nature of his homeland or dreamy scenes from the Norwegian fjords. The illustrations that Cooper created for several travel guides were also full of vividness. His son William Heaton Cooper took his father as a model and became a landscape painter as well. The family business founded by the Coopers still exists today. The Heaton Cooper Studio in the town of Grasmere is an art gallery and small shop.
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