This collection chronicles Douglas Cooper's long career as critic, curator, and collector, as well his wide circle of associations within the art world. Limited to his professional life, it encompasses his curatorship of the Mayor Gallery (London), his investigation of art stolen by Nazis, and his penchant for controversy. It includes correspondence, manuscripts, printed matter, photographs, clippings, audiovisual materials, and a variety of other media.

Douglas Cooper was born in London in 1911 to a family that had made a fortune in Australia and acquired a baronetcy. After briefly attending Oxford, Freiburg and the Sorbonne, he came into his inheritance, a third of which he employed to amass a collection of early Cubist paintings (1906-1914) by Picasso, Braque, Gris and Leger. During the same decade he was associated with the Mayor Gallery in London, serving as curator, lecturer, and essayist, presenting the European Modernists to a British audience and developing a wide range of art world acquaintances.

37.5 Linear Feet (94 boxes)

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Open for use by qualified researchers.