George Cohen (1919-1999) was a figure painter who strongly influenced the Chicago art world in the 1950s and 1960s. He was born in Chicago in 1919 and attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the University of Chicago. A long-time resident of Evanston, he was a faculty member in the art department at Northwestern University from 1948-1984, where he was also a President’s Fellow and Distinguished Faculty Lecturer. His numerous awards included the Copley Award, the National Foundation of the Arts Award, a Ford Arts Council Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.
Cohen was a founding member of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago and was one of many young artists in the 1950s who was part of the “new Chicago School.” Mainly in oils and mixed media, much of Cohen’s art consisted of collages of painted forms, mirrors, and three-dimensional objects. Today, his work can be found in the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Carnegie Mellon Museum in Pittsburgh. When Cohen’s wife, fellow artist Constance Cohen, died, he stopped painting.
