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Harvey Cohen
Woodstock Tenant
Since 2002


Walking into Harvey Cohen’s abode at The Woodstock one recent wintry day, the room was filled with a soft north light.  It was very much like entering an art gallery – the walls filled with paintings of scenes from nature, faces captured on canvas, intricate collages made of found objects and more.   But the gallery is at once a living, breathing studio, and paints, paintbrushes, paper, and other supplies vie for shelf space.   And at the same time it is the home of Mr. Cohen.   Despite the relatively small dimensions of the space, the room grows larger as you sit down and begin to listen to Mr. Cohen, whose stories open up the history books and conjure vistas of other lands.
Over the last 60 years, Mr. Cohen has produced a breathtaking collection of paintings and collages, for which he has won awards from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation and a Fulbright Scholarship, among others.   Exhibitions of his work have been held at the Allan Stone Gallery and other leading galleries in New York City, and his paintings are in the private collections of more than 40 individuals and institutions – Hazel Guggenheim, Dan Pritzker, Lady Rose York, Peter Chelnik, Cigna Corporation, and Walker Art Institute, to name just a few.

He has also worked alongside some of the luminaries of the twentieth century.   In Maine, where he spent summers long ago, he was good friends with his neighbor Zero Mostel.   During his years in Paris, he dated Hazel Guggenheim – and regularly spent time at the famed Deux Magot with Alberto Giaccometti, Albert Camus, Andre Breton, and Tristan Zara, the Hungarian-born poet who inspired the Dada movement.
Mr. Cohen has held numerous residencies, which also took him to lesser-known places in Europe as well as the United States.   He spent a year in Ibiza, off the coast of Spain.   When he got to Italy, his first stop was the Sistine Chapel, immediately followed by the Uffizi Galleries.   He regrets that he has never gotten to Amsterdam – home to many of the van Gogh masterpieces. 

A common enough question, we asked Mr. Cohen, who were the artists who most influenced his work?  He replied, “It is never possible to say which artists influenced any given piece of work.   One is exposed to a plethora of paintings and sculptures over many years, and sometimes you or I may see glimpses and echoes of their work in my own.”   But he cited Paul Klee as his favorite artist, as well as Germany’s Kurt Schwatters, who influenced his collage making.
Mr. Cohen graduated from Cooper Union with a Master of Fine Arts Degree and studied at the Art Students League and Brooklyn Museum Art School.   He continued his studies in Paris at the Sorbonne and at the Academie de la Grande Chaumier. 

A native New Yorker, in his youth Mr. Cohen used to shovel sidewalks in Flatbush to make money, and later spent six years in advertising.   He left advertising to pursue his passion for art, but all was not simple from there.   Along the way he taught at New York University as well as other institutions.   He did other jobs in order to be able to live and travel.

 “If I weren’t living at the Woodstock, I couldn’t do my art,”  Mr. Cohen said.  “I think at this point I’ve paid my dues.”   As much as he misses nature and the countryside, he says he “thrives on the excitement of Times Square.”   There is so much to do, museums within walking distance, Carnegie Hall.   “I couldn’t do any of it if I didn’t live at the Woodstock,” he added.   “I would be struggling.    But thanks to Project FIND, I can do my art.   And that is my whole life.”
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