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, John Bellany 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

  • Painting is a Painting is a Painting, 14/11/11 – 12/11/12. The ninth exhibition, presented three artists who all playfully question what constitutes 'a painting'. John M Armleder (CH), Rashid Johnson (USA) & Dirk Skreber (D) come from very different backgrounds, working visually, conceptually, even ideologically very differently, but all challenge our expectations of what a painting can, feel and look like.
  • Attitude, 21 April 2010 - 28 February 2011. The eighth exhibition featured a selection of painting and sculpture by Dan Colen, Gerald Davis, Gardar Eide Einarsson, Dirk Skreber and Banks Violette. It was an exhibition of work by artists whose approach might be considered anti-social or to support positions that fly in the face of conventional morality and good taste.
  • Minimal Means, 15/9/09 – 6/3/10. The seventh exhibition explored how a significant group of contemporary artists have responded to Modernism. Some artists included were Kenneth Noland, Rudolf Stingel, Tom Dixon, Lee Ufan and Mathias Bengtsson.
  • Passage to India Part II, 17/3/09 – 1/8/09. The sixth exhibition followed the huge success of Passage to India Part I which showcased new Indian art from Cohen's Collection in March 2008, Passage to India Part II featured a further selection of new, exciting and innovative painting and sculpture by today's Indian art stars.
  • Lightness of Being, 6/9/08 – 19/12/08. The fifth exhibition presented a selection of recent works in neon and fluorescent light. The artists in Lightness of Being work across media. In this exhibition one aspect of their practice was highlighted to demonstrate the unique potential that the medium of charged particles in light has when manipulated by the creative mind. Some artists included were Jason Rhoades, Tracey Emin, Olafur Eliasson and John M. Armleder.
  • Passage to India, 15/3/08 – 2/8/08. The fourth exhibition showcased a selection of important painting and sculpture by a new generation of artists from India who are starting to take centre stage in the international contemporary art world.
  • Unholy Truths, 8/9/07 – 15/12/07. The third exhibition acknowledged the current fashion for the ‘Gothic’ in contemporary art but was extended and deepened, avoiding the pastiche of imagery that graces the walls of so many exhibitions today.
  • Time Difference, 31/3/07 – 26/7/07. The second exhibition celebrated painting and sculpture across the International Date Line showing recent painting from China and sculpture from America. Its two main focal points being the cities of Beijing and Los Angeles - two cities that represent the nuclei for contemporary art in their respective societies around which the new art is grouping.
  • Design For Living, 19/1/07 – 1/3/07. This was the first exhibition which presented a selection of new works focusing on art that responds to architecture or the qualities that architecture requires, such as design and structure. These works were juxtaposed with examples of contemporary furniture design to explore their interrelationships, and shared concerns and aesthetics.

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

  • Yoshitomo Nara: "Greetings from a place in my heart" 03/10/14 – 14/12/14. The largest and most comprehensive solo exhibition in the UK to date, comprising a large body of recent and previously unreleased works, the exhibition included painting, sculpture, and a unique retrospective of Nara's drawings spanning 30 years.
  • A Selection of works by Adriana Lara: "Smoking Kills" 06/08/14 – 07/09/14. An exhibition of works made between 2006-2012 comprising a variety of media - sculpture, screen-print, block-print, ready-mades and installation - the show focused on the artist's expansive research on visual language.
  • Julian Schnabel: "Every Angel has a Dark Side" 25/04/14 – 27/07/14. The first major solo exhibition of paintings in the UK for almost 15 years. The exhibition brought together new and rarely seen works spanning primarily the last ten years. Now known as much for his critically acclaimed films as for his art, this exhibition was both a reevaluation and a celebration of Julian Schnabel the painter — his primary occupation.
  • "Island" 11/10/13 – 08/12/13. The group exhibition brought together works of over forty established and emerging international contemporary artists curated by Sarina Basta. Based on the novel Island, written by Aldous Huxley in 1962, a utopian story and counterpart to Brave New World written by the same author some thirty years earlier, the exhibition was constructed to reflect the unfolding narrative as a reader would progress chapter by chapter. Artists included: Ai Weiwei, John M Armleder, Sylvie Auvray, Tom Benson, Valentin Carron, Jake & Dinos Chapman, George Condo, Ann Craven, Thomas Demand, Fang Lijun, Urs Fischer, Théodore Fivel, Sylvie Fleury, FOS, Cyprien Gaillard, Gunjan Gupta, Anthea Hamilton, Thilo Heinzmann, Terence Koh, Sergej Jensen, Rashid Johnson, Per Kirkeby, Adriana Lara, Franck Leibovici & Diemo Schwarz, Ursula Mayer, Takashi Murakami, Order of the Third Bird, Jagannath Panda, Mai-Thu Perret, Sigmar Polke, Laure Prouvost, R.H. Quaytman, Ugo Rondinone, Sterling Ruby, Tomàs Saraceno, Julian Schnabel, Cindy Sherman, Dirk Skreber, Haim Steinbach, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Thukral and Tagra, Andro Wekua, Douglas White, Zeng Fanzhi.
  • John M Armleder: "Quicksand" 25/04/13 – 17/08/13. The Dairy Art Centre celebrated its opening with a tribute to the Swiss artist John M Armleder (Geneva, 1948; lives and works in Geneva), by staging his largest ever solo exhibition in the UK. The exhibition, curated by Alessandro Rabottini, presented a vast array of different media, and alternated works made specifically for the occasion such as Y Raid, with those from the collections of Dairy Art Centre founders Frank Cohen and Nicolai Frahm.

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

  • A Passion For Art: Art Collectors and their Houses by Irene Gludowacz and Susanne van Hagen (Thames & Hudson, 2006) ISBN 0-500-51256-6
  • Modern Art Now: from Conception to Consumption by Caroline Wiseman (Strawberry, 2006) ISBN 0-9553194-0-4
  • Moving Targets: A User's Guide to British Art Now by Louisa Buck (Tate Publishing, 2000) ISBN 1-85437-316-1
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