Robert Cottingham

Robert Cottingham (born 1935 in Brooklyn, New York) is an American artist known for his paintings and prints of urban American landscapes showing building facades, neon signs, movie marquees, railroad heralds and shop fronts.

Although often considered one of the most important photorealist painters, Cottingham rejects the label of being a photorealist. He rather sees himself as a realist painter working in a long tradition of American vernacular scenes in the line of the likes of Stuart Davis, Charles Demuth, Edward Hopper and Charles Sheeler. Cottingham regards his works as no mere painterly translations of photographs or reproductions of reality since he often changes the words in his facades to alter the meaning of the subject. His primary interest lies in the subject matter — the so-called Americana.

Cottingham studied art at Brooklyn's Pratt Institute and started his career in advertising. After relocating to Los Angeles for work, he began to commit seriously to painting. In 1968, he ended his advertising career and devoted himself full-time to painting. In the late 1960s, he started using photography in his painting practice.

Cottingham taught at the Art Center College of Design, Los Angeles (1969–70), and the National Academy of Design, New York (1991). He was the artist in residence at Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut (1987–92). His work has been included in significant group exhibitions, including Documenta, Kassel, West Germany (1972), and those at the Serpentine Gallery, London (1973); Centre national d’art contemporain, Paris (1974); Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (1978); a traveling exhibition at the National Museum of American Art (now Smithsonian American Art Museum), Washington, D.C. (1986); Samsung Museum of Modern Art, Seoul (2001); and Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin (2009). Cottingham’s printed oeuvre was celebrated by a solo presentation at National Museum of American Art in 1998–99. The artist lives and works in western Connecticut.

--Biography from "Robert Cottingham," Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Cottingham) and "Robert Cottingham," Guggenheim (https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/artist/robert-cottingham), retrieved 10/12/2023