Eileen Cooper is a respected British artist known for her strong and passionate commitment to figuration. Her richly diverse images, simultaneously bold and tender, reveal a range of feeling that is both deeply engrossing and readily accessible, yet still very much part of contemporary art practice. Throughout her career, Cooper’s work has contained a strong autobiographical element. However, her vision is always more allegorical than anecdotal, her concerns and experiences as relevant and timeless as those of the human spirit itself. Studying first at Goldsmiths College (1971-74) and then at the Royal College of Art (1974-77), she went on to teach at a wide range of art schools including St Martin’s, the Royal College of Art, City & Guilds in London and latterly at the Royal Academy of Arts. In 2000, she was elected a Royal Academician. From 2010-17, Cooper served as Keeper of the Royal Academy, one of only four officers selected from the 80 Royal Academicians, and with primary responsibility for the Royal Academy Schools, thereby becoming the first woman to be elected to this role since the RA began in 1768. Originally from the Peak District, Cooper has exhibited widely in the UK and internationally. Her work is held in many public and private collections such as the Arts Council Collection; the British Museum; National Portrait Gallery, London; Manchester Art Gallery; Mima, Middlesborough; New Hall Art Collection, University of Cambridge; the Royal Collection; Victoria & Albert Museum; Dallas Museum of Art, Texas; Kunsthalle, Nuremberg; and Walpole Library, Yale University. She was made an Officer of the British Empire (OBE) for services to Art and Art Education in 2016.