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Watercolour, 19⅝ × 15 in. (50 × 38 cm.)
This paintings shows one of Cooper’s favourite models, possibly his wife. Both the model’s hair and pose, and the artist’s palette, are evocative of the 1930s.
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Inscribed and dated on the reverse
Coloured chalks, 14 × 66 in. (35.5 × 167.7 cm.)

This painting, which is on plaster and measures about 32 ft 10 in. in length,
originally hung above the altarpiece, some 12 ft above the ground, in St Jude’s Church, south London. The church is located on St George’s Road by the Imperial War Museum. Sold by the Church of England some eighteen years ago, and having undergone various reincarnations (at one point as a furniture warehouse), the building is currently owned by the Elephant and Castle New Testament Church of God.

According to an article of 13 November 1925 in the Daily Telegraph, the painting was commissioned as a memorial to the men of the parish who died in the First World War, and was unveiled on 12 November 1925. The models were parishioners of St Jude’s who particularly suffered during the war.

We are grateful to the Revd Tom Devonshire Jones, Clive Jones and the British War Memorial Project for assistance.

Thumbnail panels:

Alfred Egerton Cooper 1883 – 1974

Painter, born in Tettenhall, near Wolverhampton, he attended Bilston School of Art and the RCA, London from he graduated in 1911. Cooper specialised in portraits, figure subjects and landscapes, exhibiting at the Manchester City Art Gallery, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, RA, Chenil Galleries, GI, RBA, RSA the Paris Salon and elsewhere. He served in the Artists' Rifles, 1914-18 during which time the sight in one eye was impaired by chlorine gas. In 1940 he painted a portrait of George VI and his portrait of Winston Churchill, painted in 1943, was widely reproduced. Copper was elected ARBA 1921 and a full member two years later. His work is in the GAC and the NPG. While still a student, Cooper entered a competition for which John Singer Sargent was one of the judges. Impressed by the young Cooper’s work, Sargent invited Cooper to work with him at his studio in Tite Street, Chelsea which had belonged to James McNeill Whistler. Cooper was to spend about a year with Sargent assisting the Master with backgrounds and details for his paintings. At the end of World War I Cooper was appointed as Official War Artist to the R.A.F. He became an expert in the art and technique of large scale aerial camouflage, sketching and painting landscapes from a variety of aircraft. Some of his related work is in London's Imperial War Museum.