Elaine Cooper: A life in art

Elaine Cooper is an undiscovered treasure, she studied at Leeds Art College during WWII, remained single and devoted her life to art, both as a working artist and a teacher, between 1966-1973 at the then Leeds Polytechnic, despite lifelong struggles with mental health.

She worked in a range of styles and media from traditional representational to contemporary, using oils, inks and intricate paper collages made from old magazines, influenced by the Impressionists and contemporary artists Jacob Kramer and Anthony Earnshaw. Her main passion was people, reflected in her prolific body of figure drawings in pencil and inks.

She was a real polymath, an active member of Leeds Civic Trust, Leeds Arts Centre and Leeds Fine Arts, she was interested in history, literature, theatre, costume and art. She left a fascinating legacy, to be shown in slides with the talk, not only a large body of artwork but also her study notes from Leeds Art College in the 1940s, diaries, drawings from her time as Fashion Illustrator at John Barran’s in the 1950s, sketchbooks of life in Leeds and ephemera from Leeds Arts Centre.

Lydia Rain is Elaine Cooper’s niece and was her carer during her final years. She is now custodian of Elaine Cooper’s legacy, giving talks and organising exhibitions to promote appreciation of her work. Lydia is an artist herself, working from a studio in Northlight Arts Centre in Leeds