Antique Circa 1917 American Framed Watercolor on Canvas California Scene Villa in San Juan Capistrano by Colin Campbell Cooper (Southern California)
Colin Cooper was also known for the unique way that he handled watercolor on canvas, he did this "so cleverly that his water-colors can scarcely be distinguished from oils." This style of painting was later called "The California Style" of watercolor painting. Very few, if any, artists at the time were employing this technique in the manner that Cooper was. Speaking of the success that Cooper had in rendering his city scenes, a writer for the Brush and Palette (1872) magazine made favorable comments.
A resident and distinguished impressionist painter of both the East and West Coasts, Colin Campbell Cooper earned an international reputation with his depictions of landscapes, florals, portraits, gardens, interiors and figures. He was especially noted for street scenes and skyscrapers of New York and Philadelphia, and his impressionist* palette was inspired by Childe Hassam, whom he met in New York beginning in the 1890s.
In the later part of his life, he focused on West Coast subject matter and espoused The California Style* of watercolor painting, a bold, aggressive new oil-painting look to a medium that had traditionally been used more modestly.
He was born in Philadelphia to an upper class family where the father was a surgeon, and he, the son, was encouraged by his educated family to pursue art. He was also inspired by the art he saw at the 1876 Philadelphia Exposition*. He studied at the Pennsylvania Academy* of the Fine Arts with Thomas Eakins and in Paris at the Academies Julian*, Vitti, and Delecluse*. During that time, he traveled throughout Europe and painted picturesque architectural scenes, which gained him widespread recognition. Sadly many of these paintings were lost in a fire of 1896.
From 1895 to 1898, he was instructor of watercolor at the Drexel Institute in Philadelphia and then moved to New York City from where he and his artist wife, Emma Lampert, traveled throughout the world in search of subject matter. On a European trip in 1912, they sailed on the Carpathia and became part of the rescue operation of the sinking Titanic, an experience that Cooper depicted in a painting, View of Steamship Carpathia passing along the edge of the ice flow after recuing survivors of the Titanic (1912).
Of this event it was written by an historian that Carpathia, built 1902, "was sailing from New York City to Rijeka on the night of Sunday, 14 April 1912. Among her passengers were renowned American painters Colin Campbell Cooper and his wife Emma, journalist Lewis P. Skidmore, photographer Dr. Francis H. Blackmarr and Charles H. Marshall, whose three nieces were traveling aboard the Titanic. . . .At 4 o'clock in the morning Carpathia arrived at the scene after working her way through dangerous ice fields. Carpathia was able to save 705 people, all that survived the sinking of Titanic. Carpathia, outbound for the Mediterranean prior to the distress call, ferried the survivors to New York."

American
29.00x29.00 inches
Colin Campbell Cooper



Framed Oil on Canvas
1917 estimated Circa