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| Rumoufueur 33/50 |
1920 - 2001
Chicago-born painter and printmaker who lived and worked for the last twenty years of his life in Wighton, near Wells, Norfolk. Cohen’s 50 year career as an artist began in the 1950’s in Paris after his art studies were interrupted by service in the US Air Force, chiefly as a navigator in Liberators and Flying Fortresses based in the Pacific. After winning a scholarship to travel to Europe in 1949, he shared a studio on the Left Bank with painter Sam Francis, where he mingled with film stars such as Ingrid Bergman, Kirk Douglas, Sophia Loren, James Mason and David Niven and met writers such as Ernest Hemingway, whom he ran into on a trip to Pamplona. He had an encyclopaedic knowledge of Hollywood, and of the songs of Cole Porter and Irving Berlin and was close friends with actor Anthony Quinn and director Sam Wanamaker.
His art works exhibit his exuberant love of colour married with his personal warmth, energy and good humour. His paintings have been described by the critics as being ‘like warm handshakes’ and he himself as a ‘rugged and romantic old Leftie – generous in his sympathies, ready with his enthusiasms, scathing about people who, in his view, were greedy, corrupt or against the common cause.’Subjects include: Shimmering studies of the Thames; glowing Kentish landscapes; vibrant views of the East Anglian coast; likenesses of friends and celebrities; figures from Punch and Judy; comic cartoons; hilarious portraits of chickens and cats. He carried on a tradition of bumping into celebrities throughout his life. He told writer and Critic Philip Oakes that on his drawing expeditions around East Anglia, he would often encounter an elderly lady, always accompanied – although at a distance – by two muscular men. On their second or third encounter Alfred decided to introduce himself. ‘We can’t go on meeting like this,’ he told her. ‘I suppose not.’ replied the Queen Mother.