Click on each title to browse Cowper Frank Cadogan Oil Painting.
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The last of the Pre-Raphaelites. Cowper was born in Northamptonshire. He studied at the St John's Wood Art School, and the Royal Academy Schools, after which he went to Italy. In the early part of the 20th century, some of his pictures were quite extraordinarily beautiful. Cowper became ARA in 1907, and a full RA in 1934, when his Diploma work was a painting called 'Vanity,' painted in 1907. I saw this picture at an exhibition at The Djangoly Gallery at Nottingham University in 1994. The exhibition was called 'Heaven on Earth, The Religion of Beauty in Late Victorian Art. I was really struck by 'Vanity,' which I found to be a lovely picture. The young woman portrayed is just gorgeous, with her ornate, richly coloured clothing. The catalogue of the exhibition describes her as a 'manifestation of female beauty,' and what can I possibly say to compare with that? Cowper's paintings retain their fascination for many people today, and are often seen as posters, and on calendars. He lived most of his life in London, but in old age retired to Cirencester. Cowper exhibited a the Royal Academy for over fifty years, and in the mid 1950s must have seemed to come from a different artistic epoch, which of course he did. In later life one of his main patrons was Evelyn Waugh. In old age the quality of the painters work is widely held to have declined, but he was true to the great artistic traditions to the last, and in his long career produced much that was highly individual, decorative, and that overworked word beautiful.