Artists Bio
Born in 1928, Cohen grew up in the Bronx and drew prodigiously as a child. After the war he took classes at Cooper Union and the Arts Students League. He remained in New York City his entire life with the exception of summer stints in Provincetown. Considering himself an outsider to New York’s 50s and 60s art scene, Cohen painted to please himself. His modest interiors of his wife Elizabeth, an accomplished concert pianist, capture the elegance and intensity of intimate music-making silhouetted against a flood of reflected light. His iconic Provincetown landscapes are filaments of land wedged between expanses of sea and sky depicting a place outside time. Cohen died in 2012. His legacy is a body of work built of transparent layers of paint and thought, allowing us to believe that the moment will go on forever. Cohen’s work has been collected by major museums and corporations, as well as noted contemporary artists.

Artists Statement
Always reticent to put his approach into words, Cohen once explained that “The paint is its own subject, and light is almost all of the answer. Once I’m into the work, light becomes paint and a pathway to the painting.”