Despite all the efforts we have made to fight COVID-19, it's impossible not to look back and study how our ancestors faced previous pandemics. And at the same time, art makes its contribution, whether from a broader and more colorful position, or with a much darker vision. Richard Tennant Cooper definitely belongs to the second category, and his paintings based on diseases at the beginning of the 20th century show fear, rejection, and why not, prejudice.
Born in the county of Kent in 1885, Richard Tennant Cooper developed much of his art in Paris, but returned to England and created there the series of disease paintings that brings us here today. The terror and repudiation is tangible in each of his paintings, and some of them (following what was believed in those years) even suggest women as "responsible" for the transmission of diseases like syphilis, which historically carried a huge social stigma.
Cooper ended up participating in the First World War, and the few works known from that time are almost as dark and uncomfortable as his disease paintings. Finally, his brush found a place in commercial art, creating works for the British Automobile Association and other publications dedicated to vehicles and road safety.
(Editor's note: Mild NSFW, we warn just in case)
