Revel Cooper
CULTURAL NOTICE
Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander people are advised that this page refers to deceased persons.
Revel Cooper as a young man.
Revel Ronald Cooper was born in Katanning, Western Australia in the mid-1930s and as a ward of the state was placed at Carrolup Native Settlement.
Children of Carrolup
From the 1940s children at the Carrolup school were given specialised art training. Cooper was one of a number of children collectively referred to as the Children of Carrolup. During the late 1940s artwork created by the Carrolup children was exhibited in the Western Australian capital Perth and overseas in India. Through the intervention of English woman Florence Rutter, the paintings were exhibited in New Zealand and in Europe. In 1952 his work appeared in Mary Durack’s book ‘Child Artists of the Australian Bush.’
Later art
Unlike many of the child artists of Carrolup, Cooper continued painting into adulthood. After leaving school he was briefly engaged as a commercial artist in Perth before moving back to Carrolup to work as a farm worker.
In 1952 Cooper was sentenced to four years jail for manslaughter, the first of a string of jail terms. In the mid-1950s he had a brief stint in Victoria working for Bill Onus’ Aboriginal souvenir business and is considered to have influenced the artistic style of Bill’s son, Lin Onus.
During the 1960s, with assistance from the Victorian Aborigines Advancement League [2..], Cooper was a frequent exhibitor in Victorian galleries. His use of landscapes had by this stage become his signature style.
During a stint in Fremantle Prison in 1976 he was the illustrator of Mary Durack’s ‘Yagan of the Bibbulmun,’ a work of juvenile fiction. While at Fremantle he also contributed a work depicting the ‘Stations of the Cross‘ for a church in Mount Barker. He served as a teacher for a group of artists at Fremantle Prison [2..] including Goldie Kelly and Graham ‘Swag’ Taylor.
For a time, he also worked as chauffeur to the Director of Aboriginal Welfare in Melbourne.
Revel Cooper in Melbourne
Death and legacy
He died early 1983 after being attacked with a blunt instrument. His body was discovered in December 1985, and he was buried in January 1987.
Works of Cooper are included in a number of collections, including the Holmes à Court Collection, the Fremantle Prison Collection and the Berndt Museum of Anthropology collection.
LINKS:
Revel Cooper – Australian Dictionary of Biography
Revel Cooper – Wikipedia
Revel Cooper – Alchetron
ARTWORK
Revel Cooper was a prolific artist who started his artwork as a child and continued on into adulthood. Here are just a few of his pieces.
