Robert Cottingham, "Carls"

About Robert Cottingham (1935 - )

Robert Cottingham was born in Brooklyn, NY in 1935 and completed his BFA in 1963 at the Pratt Institute. Initially starting his career in commercial advertising in Southern California, Cottingham continued working in advertising while also studying at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, eventually devoting himself to being a fulltime artist and giving up his advertising career.

  

Cottingham is considered to be one of the earliest practitioners of Photorealism, although he has never considered himself a Photorealist, and even eschews such categorization. “Photorealism” was first coined by Louis Meisel in the late 60’s, to describe a group of artists who used the camera as a tool for creating their works. One of the first gallerists to have shown work by this group of artists, Meisel has been a champion of these artists and one of the leading authorities on their work and has published numerous books on the Photorealists including the work of Cottingham. 

 

While Cottingham uses the camera as a starting point, his work can be considered much more abstract than that of his contemporaries, specifically in his handling of composition. Having started out as a commercial artist, he never completely lost touch with “design” in his work – often times blurring the line between design and fine art. His best compositions are those that are tightly cropped, and usually rendered at a raking angle.

 

Robert Cottingham is best known for his “signature” style which he developed in the late 60’s, and is characterized by his interest in American signage and shop fronts. He continued to paint such scenes up until the mid 1980’s, at which time he turned his focus to railroad box cars, then typewriters, cameras, and machine parts. By the late 90’s, he once again returned to his earlier interest in signage and shop fronts. 

 

While his work was influenced by the Pop-Art movement and his early advertising career, Cottingham has always viewed his work in line with other American vernacular painters such as Edward Hopper, Stuart Davis and Charles Sheeler.

 

Cottingham’s work has been exhibited widely over his long career and can be found in numerous private as well as public collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim, The Museum of Modern Art, and the Tate in Britain.