School of Art. He competed in the arts competition at the 1948 Summer Olympics, where his subjects included salmon rivers and horse racing. Cooper's studio base between around 1920 and 1970 was in Glebe Place, Chelsea, London, close to his home in Oakley Gardens. Due to Cooper's preference for figurative art, he was finding it difficult to sell paintings by 1970, so he threw open his studio to the public between 24 February and 7 March 1970. The Daily Mirror reported: His collection of more than 100 paintings there includes portraits, landscapes and nudes, all painted with traditional skill and realism. He is particularly proud of one bearded face which watches from the wall. It is his grandfather – the first portrait he painted at 18. I hadn't had one lesson at the time, he said, And I couldn't do it any better today. In 1922, Cooper and artists Thomas Eyre Macklin and Alfred Praga (1867–1949) were chosen by the Daily Mirror to judge its youth beauty competition. Two artists' models were photographed demonstrating their costumes for the Chelsea Arts Club Ball at the Albert Hall on New Year's Eve 1930, in Cooper's studio. In 1949, Cooper was executing "many brilliant restorations" of old paintings for John Laviers Wheatley, director of Walter Victor Hutchinson's Gallery of British Sports and Pastimes at Hutchinson House, Stratford Place, London. In 1961, Cooper, as president of Chelsea Art Society, formally welcomed Pietro Annigoni to the studio above his own, in Glebe Place. In 1972, John Dunn of BBC Radio 2 recorded a one-and-a-half-hour interview at the Glebe Place studio, in which Cooper talked about "artists and his own life". It was broadcast in early August 1972. Cooper continued to work at his studio, almost until the end of his life at age 90. Selected works Portraits In 1933, Cooper's portrait of Blue Eyes, featuring a blonde woman with 1920s bob and flapper necklace, was reproduced in The Sphere newspaper. In 1940, Cooper executed portraits of King George VI in his naval uniform and as Colonel of the Royal Army Ordnance Corps, besides "countless earls". The George VI paintings now hang in the Cavalry Barracks, Hounslow and the Sea Cadets' Barracks. Cooper painted aldermen and recorders, plus three Lord Mayors of London, some scientists, and Barnes Wallis. As a staff captain and official artist for the RAF, Cooper painted official portraits of various British military