Cora Cohen | |
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 Cohen in 2008 | |
| Born | (1943-10-19)October 19, 1943 New York City,New York, U.S. |
| Died | June 22, 2023(2023-06-22) (aged 79) Brooklyn, New York, U.S. |
| Alma mater | Bennington College |
| Known for | Abstract painting |
| Website | www |
Cora Cohen (October 19, 1943 – June 22, 2023) was an American artist whose works include paintings, drawings, photographs, and alteredx-rays. Cohen is most known for her abstract paintings and is often identified as continuing the tradition of American Abstraction. In a 2023 review inArtforumBarry Schwabsky suggested that "Cohen’s determination to evade stylistic consistency has made her one of the most underrated painters in New York."[1]The New York Times' critic Michael Brenson wrote of her 1984 exhibition,Portraits of Women: "The works are dense, brooding and yet elated. The turbulence of the paint not only looks but also feels like freedom."[2] Cohen interviewed many other artists also associated with continuing the tradition of AmericanAbstraction forBomb Magazine including;Ralph Humphrey,Dona Nelson,Craig Fisher,Carl Ostendarp, andJoan Mitchell.[3] Her work has also been identified with traditions of European abstraction, and specifically German abstraction, including the work ofWols,Sigmar Polke,Gerhard Richter.[4] She began exhibiting in Germany in the early nineties and continued to show at some of its most prestigious institutions.
Cora Cohen was born inNew York City. She attended theHigh School of Music & Art (1957–60) andBennington College (1960–64), where she studied withPaul Feeley, andLawrence Alloway.[5] Cohen was Artist in Residence in Painting at theUniversity of Pennsylvania (1969–70), after which she returned to Bennington College as a graduate student (1970–72).[6] During this time, she studied withRichard Haas, and met sound artistLiz Phillips who introduced her to new music, in particular that ofPauline Oliveros andSteve Reich. In this work Cohen found reinforcement for using traditional art materials to create decompositional abstractions.[7]
Cohen's first solo museum exhibition was initiated byJames Harithas at theEverson Museum of Art in 1974. She began exhibiting regularly in New York City at the Max Hutchinson Gallery in 1976. Cohen exhibited widely from the late eighties onward, in New York City at theHolly Solomon Gallery, and Wolff Gallery. In the early nineties she began exhibiting in Europe. In 2008, her exhibitionCome in a Little Closer at Michael Steinberg Fine Art received wide attention. It was written about inThe New York Times, artcritical.com, and reviewed in depth inThe Brooklyn Rail by Joan Waltemath who wrote, "her brushstrokes...hover between the task of delineating form and the state of becoming form. They mimic the fluctuation between being and reflecting on being and so embody theCartesian dualism that determines our consciousness."[8]
The first exhibition of Cohen's altered x rays, her works on exposed x ray films in which cuts and other interventions subvert or enhance the image, was held at The Field Institute Hombroich,Museum Insel Hombroich, Neuss in 2011. In 2013,The Responsibility of Forms, an exhibition of Cohen's 2012-13 paintings that examine a place between uncertainty and sureness was held at Guided by Invoices, New York. It was written about extensively, in artcritical.com,The Huffington Post andThe Brooklyn Rail.[4] In 2013, a selection of drawings from 2007 to 2013 was exhibited at Galerie Hafemann, Wiesbaden.
During her later years, Cohen's work was exhibited in many group exhibitions throughout the United States and abroad, including,70 Years of Abstract Painting - Excerpts, 2011, curated byStephanie Buhmann at the Jason McCoy Gallery, New York;Auf Papier, 2011, atGalerie Hafemann,Wiesbaden;Invitational Exhibition of Visual Arts 2012, at theAmerican Academy of Arts and Letters, New York;Assembly 2012, at Edward Thorp Gallery, New York;Paper Band, 2012, curated by Stephanie Simmons at Jason McCoy Gallery, New York, withFrederick Kiesler,Lee Krasner, Jim Lee, etc.,[9] andSeason Review 2013, at Edward Thorp Gallery, New York withAndrew Guenther,June Leaf, andHenri Michaux.[10]
Cohen was the recipient of awards from theYaddo Foundation (1982), theNational Endowment for the Arts (1987), theNew York Foundation for the Arts (1989), thePollock-Krasner Foundation (1998), theAdolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation (1990, 2006), theMarie Walsh Sharpe Foundation Space Program (2008), and theEdward F. Albee Foundation Residency (2009). Her painting, Curtain, 2008, 75 x 103” (190.5 x 261.62 cm) received a purchase award from theAmerican Academy of Arts and Letters (2012),[5] and she was the recipient of aJohn Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship (2013).[6]
Cohen was a frequent guest teacher and lecturer at various institutions includingThe School of the Art Institute of Chicago,Columbia University School of the Arts,Maryland Institute College of Art, andMedicine Hat College, Alberta.
Cohen lived and worked inLong Island City and continued to spend time in Germany. She died on June 22, 2023, at the age of 79.[11]
Cohen’s works are in many public collections, includingThe Swedish State Art Council (Stockholm),The Ulla and Heiner Pietzsch Collection (Berlin), theWeatherspoon Art Museum (Greensboro),Yale University (New Haven), The William and Uytendale Scott Memorial Study Collection of Works by Women of TheBryn Mawr College Art and Archaeology Collection (Bryn Mawr), theNeuberger Museum of Art, andPurchase College, (Purchase, New York).[6][12]
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