Frank Cohen

Frank Cohen
Born 15 October 1943
Nationality British
Known for Initial Access
Dairy Art Centre
Spouse(s) Cherryl Cohen (m. 1972)
Children Son, Adam
Daughter, Georgina
Website http://initialaccess.co.uk

Frank Cohen (born 15 October 1943) is a British entrepreneur, Art collector and Philanthropist.

He was born and raised in Manchester where he worked on a number of his own businesses before building up the ‘Home Improvement Company’ based in and around Manchester and then ‘GlynWebb Home Improvement Stores’, which was a large chain of Do It Yourself (DIY) stores in the North East, North West, Yorkshire, East Anglia, and the Midlands of the United Kingdom.

Cohen sold the business in 1997 and his passion for collecting art became his full-time occupation.

Cohen is the founder of Initialaccess Ltd which had an exhibition space in Wolverhampton, UK, and also the co-founder of Dairy Art Centre in London, UK.

Early life

Cohen grew up on the outskirts of Manchester and Salford. He has always been obsessed with collecting, however, it wasn’t until he met his wife Cherryl Cohen that his obsession with art began. Having come from an art involved family (Cherryl's father being an art dealer and was Chairman of the Fine Art Trade Guild) she was very much an influence upon Cohen's art collecting.

Art collecting

Cohen is one of the world's most influential and prolific collectors of British and international contemporary art. He began collecting Modern British art in the 1970s and in the early 1990s became a patron and supporter of the Young British Artists (YBAs). He also collected American and German art of the 1980s and 1990s, contemporary Japanese art (especially the Superflat movement) and more recently has added contemporary Chinese and Indian art to his interests. Every year he is listed in ARTnews magazine's list of ‘The World's Top 200 Collectors’ and is often referred to as the Medici of the North.

Among his most important works are pieces by Leon Kossoff, Stanley Spencer, Frank Auerbach, Patrick Heron, Howard Hodgkin, Bridget Riley, Barbara Hepworth, L.S. Lowry, William Roberts, Edward Burra, Richard Prince, Thomas Schutte, Damien Hirst, David Salle, David Hammons, Jean Dubuffet and Jim Dine.

Major international institutions who have loaned works include The National Portrait Gallery, London; Tate, London; the Guggenheim in New York; the Art Institute of Chicago and MoMA, NY.

Initial Access

From 2007 to 2012, Cohen pioneered Initial Access, a foundation in Wolverhampton, UK, designed to showcase and promote younger artists from his collection.

Exhibitions at Initial Access

Dairy Art Centre

In the spring of 2013 Cohen co-founded the Dairy Art Centre in Bloomsbury, London, a non-profit art centre with free admission to the public, an education programme and an internship training scheme. The Dairy hosted exhibitions drawing works from the collection together with works loaned from around the world.

Exhibitions at the Dairy Art Centre

Other major external exhibitions

A significant collection of Modern British masterpieces from the Frank Cohen Collection went on display at Chatsworth House’s New Gallery in Spring 2012. Included were paintings and sculptures by artists Stanley Spencer, L.S. Lowry, Frank Auerbach, Leon Kossoff, Harry Epworth Allen, William Roberts, Alan Davie, Edward Burra, Kenneth Armitage, William Turnbull, Patrick Heron, John Minton, Eduardo Paolozzi, John Hoyland and Reg Butler.

Howard Jacobson, Booker prize winner and personal friend[1] (Cohen used to work for his father on the markets), wrote an essay for the heavily illustrated catalogue. Robert Upstone curated in collaboration with Matthew Hirst, Head of Arts and Historic Collections at Chatsworth. Robert was Curator of Modern British Art at Tate Britain for many years where he staged a number of major shows before becoming a Director of The Fine Art Society.

Fortnum and Mason, London, opened "Fortnum X Frank[2]" on 13 September 2016. An installation of more than 60 Modern British and Contemporary works loaned from the Collection were displayed throughout the store. Artists on show were Kenneth Armitage, Frank Auerbach, Charming Baker, Robert Bevan, David Bomberg, Reginald Brill, Edward Burra, Reg Butler, Lynn Chadwick, Jake & Dinos Chapman, Joan Eardley, Tracey Emin, Harry Epworth Allen, William Gear, Charles Ginner, Spencer Frederick Gore, Maggi Hambling , Ivon Hitchens, Howard Hodgkin, Leon Kossoff, Eduardo Paolozzi, John Piper, Marc Quinn, Paula Rego, Bridget Riley, William Scott, Matthew Arnold Bracy Smith, David Spiller, Keith Vaughan and Stuart Pearson Wright.

Fresh Paint, GOMA, Glasgow (1999); Art Fortnight, London (2004);

Dark Materials, the Royal Academy of Arts, London (2008);

Facing East: Recent works from China, India and Japan from the Frank Cohen Collection, Manchester Art Gallery (2010);

The Frank Cohen Collection, the inaugural show at Shrewsbury Museum & Art Gallery (2014).

Frank has been a judge on a number of prestigious Award panels including; the Jerwood Painting Prize in 2002; the Turner Prize in 2003; and recently in the programme School of Saatchi – a TV programme award aimed at promoting and discovering young artists.

References

  1. ↑ "Frank Cohen, interviewed by Howard Jacobson". Telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 2016-12-21.
  2. ↑ "Frank Cohen's art collection comes to Fortnum & Mason". The Telegraph. Retrieved 2016-12-21.

Further reading

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