Thomas Joshua Cooper facts for kids

Thomas Joshua Cooper is an American photographer, born on December 19, 1946. He is known as one of the best landscape photographers working today.

Early Life and Learning

Thomas Joshua Cooper studied art, philosophy, and literature. He earned his first degree from Humboldt State University in California in 1969. Later, in 1972, he received his master's degree in photography from the University of New Mexico.

What Inspired His Photography

Mr. Cooper was inspired by famous photographers from the 1930s and 1940s. These included artists like Ansel Adams from the Group f/64. He has said that the works of Edward Weston, Alfred Stieglitz, and Paul Strand are very important to him. He also thinks Robert Frank is an amazing photographer.

His Photography Career

Cooper's first art show by himself was in 1971. Since then, he has had more than 95 solo exhibitions. After teaching art and photography in California, Cooper moved to England.

In 1982, he started the Fine Art Photography program at the Glasgow School of Art in Scotland. He is now retired from teaching.

Cooper loves being a photographer. However, he doesn't like some of the words people use for photography. He has said, "I hate the words 'snap,' 'shoot,' and 'take' when it comes to making photographs. Everything I do is very seriously built up. They are 'made' pictures."

Besides being a photographer, Cooper is also a poet. He has written books of haiku poems. Many of his poems are about nature and connect with his photography.

In 2009, Cooper received a special award called a Guggenheim Fellowship for his photography.

Cooper has lived in Scotland since the 1980s. His art is shown by the Ingleby Gallery in Edinburgh, Scotland.

In September 2019, Cooper opened a special exhibition. It was called "The Atlas of Emptiness and Extremity." This show was at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. It featured 65 large and 75 smaller black-and-white photographs. The exhibition included his projects like The Atlas of Emptiness and Extremity, The World's Edge, and The Atlantic Basin Project. He started the Atlantic Basin Project in 1987. His goal was to photograph the extreme points of the Atlantic Ocean. The exhibition was open until February 2020.

Awards and Special Recognitions

• 1970: John D. Phelen Award in Art and Literature.
• 1994: Major Artists Award from the Scottish Arts Council in Edinburgh, Scotland.
• 1999: Major Artist's Award from the Lannan Foundation in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
• 2014: He was chosen as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

Where His Art Is Kept

Cooper's photographs are in more than fifty museums and public collections. Some of these include:

• Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
• Denver Art Museum, Denver, Colorado
• The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, California
• Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), Houston, Texas
• Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Los Angeles, California
• Carré d'Art (Nîmes Museum of Contemporary Art), Nîmes, France
• Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, New Jersey
• The Tate Gallery, London, England
• The Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England