Harold Cohen (artist)

Harold Cohen ( born May 1, 1928 in London) is a British painter, graphic artist and computer scientist. He lives and works in London, San Diego / California and New York City. His painting is attributed to the Abstract Expressionism. He is the older brother of the also internationally known painter Bernard Cohen ( born 1933 ).

Life and work

Harold Cohen made ​​in 1951 his degree after studying art at the Slade School of Fine Art in London. He undertook a study trip to Italy. From 1952 to 1966 Cohen has held various teaching posts in England.

His work gained international attention in the 1960s, in 1961 he took part at the II Biennale de Paris in 1963 at the Tokyo Biennale, in 1964 he was invited to take part in the documenta III in Kassel in the painting department. In 1966 Cohen as one of five British artists at the Venice Biennale in part. In 1977 he was invited a second time to a documenta in Kassel, documenta 6 in the drawing department.

In 1968, Cohen was appointed Visiting Professor of Fine Art at the University of California at San Diego (USA). In 1969 he took over the management of its Department of Visual Arts and was founding director of the Center for Research in Computing and the Arts ( CRCA ). Harold Cohen shows great interest in programming and artificial intelligence. He was invited in 1971 as a visiting researcher at the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at Stanford University to participate in the development of a drawing machine. In 1974, Harold Cohen programmed the first version of the program of " AARON " AARON is a kind of algorithm for character movement of the human hand for an autonomous computer as a drafting machine.

Literature and sources

• Documenta III. International Exhibition; Catalogue: Volume 1: Paintings and Sculpture; Volume 2: Hand drawings; Volume 3: Industrial design, graphic; Kassel / Cologne 1964