Harold Cohen

In 1969 Bernard Jacobson began his career as an art dealer, selling and publishing prints by important contemporary artists from a small fourth-floor gallery in London’s Mayfair. For a gallery founded on printmaking and which continues to stage major print shows by artists including Matisse and Motherwell, what better way could there be to celebrate this half century than a two-part exhibition devoted to printmaking?

Harold Cohen acquired a major reputation in the 1960s as a painter and leading figure in the new London scene and represented the UK at the 1966 Venice Biennale, documenta 5, and in museum shows throughout the world. In 1968, he moved to California, where he served as professor and then as chair in the newly formed visual arts department of the University of California, San Diego. There, he turned his attention to computing and quickly built a second reputation as a pioneer in the application of computing to the arts.

Harold Cohen's new works represent the most recent stage of a project in evolution since 1972, when he seemingly abandoned his distinguished painting career in favour of computer programming. Since then, Cohen has channelled all his artistic efforts into writing AARON, a computer programme capable of autonomously generating original imagery.