Thomas Sidney Cooper

Thomas Sidney Cooper RA ( born September 26, 1803 in Canterbury, † February 7, 1902 in London) was an English landscape and animal painter, particularly known for his depictions of cattle and sheep.

In his early childhood, Cooper worked in the workshop of "Coach Painter " and provided wood and metal parts of carriages and carts with protective coatings. Later, he was temporarily employed as a stage painter before he moved to London in 1823. There he went first for drawing and painting to the British Museum and then took on to study art at the Royal Academy of Arts. After Cooper returned to Canterbury, where he earned his living by drawing lessons and sale of images.

1827 Cooper went to Brussels, where Eugène Joseph Verboeckhoven was his teacher, and where he perfected through the study of the Dutch school of the 17th century, his skills as a landscape and animal painter.

1830 Cooper returned back to England. In 1833, he was able to present his first pictures at the Royal Academy and developed from there on a busy exhibition schedule, and in other institutions. His landscape and animal pictures, especially with representations of cattle and sheep, have been increasingly in demand. Among the best known of his several hundred works include: Drovers crossing Newbigging Muir in a snow drift, East Cumberland ( 1860), The Shepherd's Sabbath (1866 ), Milking Time in the Meadows ( Diploma picture, 1869), as well as the studies of bulls: The Monarch of the Meadows (1873 ) and Separated but not Divorced (1874 ).

1867 Cooper became a member of the Royal Academy. The 1865 set up in his birthplace " Sidney Cooper Art Gallery ", he left in 1882 the city of Canterbury. His autobiography was published in 1891 under the title "My Life".

Thomas Sidney Cooper's son, Thomas George Cooper (1857-1896), his father emulated as an animal and landscape painter, but similar successes were denied him.