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About the artist

Judith "Judy" Cooper

b. 1938

Born an only child in Memphis, Tennessee, Judy Cooper grew up in Birmingham, Alabama. She first arrived in New Orleans as an undergraduate in 1955, where she studied English at Newcomb College. She spent her junior year in Paris, France, and the experience was a profound influence upon her future. “At that time, few people thought of photography as art, but it was becoming popular to document your travels with color slides.”

Cooper earned a master of arts degree in English from Columbia University and doctorates in both French and Italian literature from Tulane University. While teaching French at Loyola University in the early 1970s, Cooper played tour guide to French photographer Jean Pierre Favreau as he photographed Louisiana. Soon, she left academia to pursue professional photography.

With photographers Ron Todd and Alan Hess she formed Muse, Inc., a company that photographed fine art for archival purposes and as a record of gallery installations. With this project, Cooper strengthened her relationship with the New Orleans Museum of Art, which commissioned prints of the plates to mount an exhibition. In 1998, Cooper joined the museum’s staff as its official photographer.

Cooper is a founding member of the New Orleans Photo Alliance and is a recipient of the Louisiana Division of the Arts Photography Fellowship. In 2008, the New Orleans Museum of Art hosted the solo exhibition "Living Color: Photographs by Judy Cooper," which traveled to the LSU Museum of Art in Baton Rouge, the University Art Museum in Lafayette, and the Houston FotoFest.
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