Jeremy Cooper

Jeremy Cooper is a writer and art historian. He is the author of several novels and works of non-fiction, including studies of young British artists in the 1990s,^[1][2] scholarship on Victorian and Edwardian design, and the British Museum’s 2019 catalogue of artists’ postcards.^[3] In 2018, he won the first Fitzcarraldo Editions Novel Prize for Ash before Oak.^[4] Cooper's work has been covered by the The New York Review of Books,^[1] The Times Literary Supplement,^[5] The British Film Institute,^[6] Bookforum,^[7] Literary Hub,^[8] and others.^[9][10] In The New Yorker, National Book Award-winning writer Sigrid Nunez said of Cooper's book, Brian, "I can think of no finer exploration of what can happen when a person is fully open and attentive to art, and how a shared passion for art can connect people to one another."^[11]

Cooper was born in Dorset and lives in Somerset.^[12] He worked for Sotheby's and as Mohamed Al-Fayed's private art consultant before opening his own gallery in Bloomsbury. He appeared in the first twenty-four episodes of BBC’s Antiques Roadshow and was co-presenter of Radio 4’s The Week’s Antiques.^[13] He has written for The Sunday Times, The Observer and The Sunday Telegraph.^[14] He is a collector of historic postcard work by Dieter Roth, Richard Hamilton, Carl Andre, Claes Oldenburg and many others.^[13]

Bibliography

Fiction

• Ruth (1986)
• Us (1990)
• The folded lie (1998)
• Kath Trevelyan (2007)
• Ash before Oak (2019)
• Bolt from the Blue (2021)
• Brian (2023)
• Discord (2026)

Non-fiction

• Victorian and Edwardian Decor: From the Gothic Revival to Art Nouveau
• The World Exists to Be Put on a Postcard: Artists' postcards from 1960 to now
• Growing Up: The Young British Artists at 50