On display until January 2022
The Colman Project Space at Norwich Castle is proud to present Alfred Cohen: New Horizons.
This exhibition marks the Centenary of the birth of artist Alfred Cohen (1920-2001) with a selection of works on loan from the Alfred Cohen Art Foundation and featuring the magnificent Evening Sky – Wells (1991) from Norwich Castle’s collection. The exhibition also includes a new work to enter the collection Sloping Farm Building (1965) which has been generously donated by the Foundation.
Who was Alfred Cohen?
Alfred Cohen was an American painter whose work was deeply steeped in the European tradition; he was particularly influenced by commedia dell’arte, as well as the colour and technique of the Post-Impressionists and Expressionists.
Born in the United States, he studied painting and printmaking at the Art Institute of Chicago. In 1929, he received a foreign travel scholarship that allowed him to travel throughout Europe. He pursued his studies at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris and exhibited his work in France and Germany. Friendships with American Abstract Expressionist painter Sam Francis, poet and translator Carlyle F MacIntyre, and actor Anthony Quinn broadened Cohen’s artistic horizons in Paris; Cohen knew many famous film and stage actors, directors, and producers who bought his work, including Stanley Baker, James Mason, Sam Wanamaker, and Carl Foreman. Cohen moved to England in 1960 and had a long run of shows with Roland, Browse, and Delbanco.
Cohen engaged in property development with his second wife, Diana Snow, which led to the establishment of The Wighton Schoolhouse Gallery in Norfolk, where Cohen had a studio and where a memorial retrospective was held, as well as a memorial retrospective at the London Jewish Cultural Centre, both in 2001, the year The Alfred Cohen Foundation was founded.
