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Robert Cottingham was born 1935 in Brooklyn, New York, he is considered to be one of the most modern and important original photorealist painters, his work is mostly all closeup photographs on American signs and theatres. He studied art at Brooklyn’s Pratt Institute in 1965, his work is seen in New York, London, Germany, Brooklyn, Los Angeles, California, San Francisco and Netherlands. He has been influenced by his city Holbrook and most of his art is about the city he was born in, Brookyln. He use to visit Manhatton a few times when he was young and he use to be amased at the Times Square- "When I was nine or ten years old," he recalled, "my father began taking me into Manhattan…from our home in Brooklyn. The most exciting moment of every visit was that first glimpse of Times Square". He began to work on being a full time artist once we got older ""I started doing buildings," he says, "and gradually began to look up higher and saw things up there that nobody ever notices." In 1971, while Robert was living in Los Angeles, Robert Cottingham made his New York single at the O. K. Harris Gallery, the gallery was also showing works by Robert Bechtle, Ralph Goings, Richard McLean, Malcom Morley, and John Salt. He felt he fitted into the newly identified category of photorealism quite well, even thought he was quite unaware of this catergory. He was much more interested in his environment and the subjects than in the techniques of photo-based painting (photorealism). Robert Cottingham left Los Angeles in 1972 and moved with his wife and daughters to London, where they resided until 1976, "I consider myself to be an American artist painting American scenes," he said after he moved back to the States. "And while I found London a good place to work, I did not want to use any of the images that were around me there." -Robert Cottingham, while staying at London. He made a lot of indiviual pieces of photorealism, such as "Candy", "Barrera-Rosa's", "Rolling Stock: The...

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