The paintings shown in this book speak for themselves. There are drama, majesty, humor and pathos; and John S Coppin has interpreted them with an articulate brush. His easel paintings show the wide scope of his imagination.
John S Coppin is probably best known as a portrait painter. Leaders in many fields, industry, government, art and finance, have climbed the stairs to his studio in the Scarab Club in Detroit. Their likenesses hang in many honoured places. One example of his portraiture, a painting of a former Governor of the State of Michigan, Murray D. Van Wagoner, is part of this collection. The late General Wm. S. Knudsen sat for John and the portrait now hangs in Frederiksburg Castle in Denmark. He has painted the late Henry Ford, Alvan Macauley, former Governor Harry F. Kelly, and many other famous persons.
Monotony is one word absent from his vocabulary, for also up those stairs have trooped cowboys, Indians, society women, hoboes, day laborers, ministers and models.
John S Coppin worked in many mediums. His satirical sketches in ink are well known for their biting humour, and his nudes are excellent in thier delicacy and warmth of flesh tones. He believed that technique should vary with the subject matter.
He was born in Mitchell, Ontario, in 1904. Sketches of animals made by his grandfather in the Toronto Zoo prompted John S. at the mature age of ten to announce that he was going to be an artist. At nineteen, his family wanted him to be a banker, but the years had not altered his decision. Sundry jobs supported him during his art school days. Rather than study with any one teacher, he prefered to glean from each what he thought would be of use to him, and like many artists, he made the traditional "look and see" trips to the galleries of London and Paris.
Finally. a modicum of success took him from a teller's cage to a studio with a north light and the precarious but happy life of an artist. He never had reason to regret it.
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[ "MORE Examples of John's work" ]
[ "All Things Coppin" ] - [ "John S Coppin, Introduction" ] - ["Coppin World UK" ]
