By Hilary Cooper
Introduction by Ambassador Jean Kennedy Smith, founder of Very Special Arts

To change the perception of disabilities requires new images and ideas of disability, nurturing a truly modern view of disabilities as a diversity issue—even a human rights issue, rather than solely a health issue. To help create this new face of disabilities, Umbrage Editions is coordinating a unique book and art exhibit, Divided Portraits. These beautiful and inspiring portraits by New York-based portraitist and painter Hilary Cooper present dramatic images of individuals with disabilities. These pictures confound the traditional view of the disabled, showing grace, beauty, strength, and resolve—words not usually associated with disabilities. These transformative images affect viewers and challenge assumptions.

Hilary Cooper found herself in a wheelchair after a serious fall, and through that life-changing experience, began this series. An intimate and personal investigation into the nature of identity as it relates to portraiture and individuation, the works as a whole inquire to what extent we are judged by context. More specifically the series ask to what extent a wheelchair is a uniform. The portraits are painted in two parts – diptychs, the head in one and the body and wheelchair (or crutches or prostheses) in the other, and by separating the head from the rest, the viewer`s preconceptions of the subject’s identity are challenged.

About the Author:

Hilary Cooper is a portrait and landscape painter. She has done the portraits of New York Mayor Ed Koch and writers James Salter, Peter Mathiessen, and George Plimpton, among many others. She has shown her portraits at Here Arts Center in New York and the O. Kelly Anderson Gallery. Her landscapes and still lifes have appeared in various galleries in New York and around the country. Her work has also been seen in The New Yorker, New York Magazine, Art News, Aspen Magazine and The Harvard Advocate. She lives in New York City and Lakeville Connecticut with her husband, the writer Chris Crowley.

Jean Kennedy Smith, who is contributing the introduction to Divided Portraits, is the founder of VSA arts. She was the U.S. Ambassador to Ireland from 1993 to 1998. She has received numerous awards for her many contributions to the issue of disabilities, including the Jefferson Award for Outstanding Public Service from the American Institutes for Public Service, the Margaret Mead Humanitarian Award from the Council of Cerebral Palsy Auxiliaries, and the 1997 Terence Cardinal Cooke Humanitarian Award. She has four children.

Roxana Robinson is the author of three novels: Sweetwater (2003), This Is My Daughter, (1998) and Summer Light (1988); two short story collections A Glimpse of Scarlet, (1991) Asking for Love, (1996) and the biography Georgia O`Keeffe: A Life, (1989) as well as A Perfect Stranger. Four of these were named Notable Books of the Year by The New York Times. She has received fellowships from the NEA, the MacDowell Colony, and the Guggenheim Foundation.

VSA Arts (Very Special Arts) is an international nonprofit organization founded in 1974 to create a society where all people with disabilities learn through, participate in, and enjoy, the arts. It provides educators, parents, and artists with the resources and tools to support arts programming in schools and communities, and promotes increased access to the arts for people with disabilities. Each year, millions of people participate in VSA arts programs through a nationwide network of affiliates and in more than sixty countries around the world. VSA arts is an affiliate of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Please visit vsarts.org for more information.

$35 USD
8.5″ x 12″ / 80 pages
44 full-color and black & white photographs
April 2007
ISBN: 978-1-884167-64-5

Website price: $17.50

Exhibition Information:

To change the perception of disabilities requires new images and ideas of disability, nurturing a truly modern view of disabilities as a diversity issue—even a human rights issue, rather than solely a health issue. To help create this new face of disabilities, Umbrage Editions is coordinating a unique book and art exhibit, Divided Portraits. These beautiful and inspiring portraits by New York based portraitist and painter Hilary Cooper present dramatic images of individuals with disabilities. These pictures confound the traditional view of the disabled, showing grace, beauty, strength, and resolve—words not usually associated with disabilities. These transformative images affect viewers and challenge assumptions.

Hilary Cooper found herself in a wheelchair after a serious fall, and through that life-changing experience, began this series. An intimate and personal investigation into the nature of identity as it relates to portraiture and individuation, the works as a whole inquire to what extent we are judged by context. More specifically the series ask to what extent a wheelchair is a uniform. The portraits are painted in two parts – diptychs, the head in one and the body and wheelchair (or crutches or prostheses) in the other, and by separating the head from the rest, the viewer`s preconceptions of the subject’s identity are challenged.

- Total 42 items to occupy 100 linear feet:
- 9 two-piece (18 total) oil on can- vas paintings. Diptychs ranging in size from 40” x 24” to 72” x 52”
- 2 sculptures consisting of a plaster head and mixed media pedestal, 1 measuring 22” x 10” x 8” with a 16” x 16” x 46” pedestal 18” x 5” x 5” and 1, a work in progress, to be 66” x 24” x 20”
- 1 pencil on paper drawing measuring 22” x 16
- 1 title panel 30” x 40” framed in black metal under UV Plexiglass
- Banner 24” x 80”
- 15 text panels at 20” x 24”
- 6-8 week bookings
- Fee: $3,000 plus prorated one- way shipping and insurance
- Artist available for panels and lectures
- 15 copies of catalog/publication

Download the press release (PDF)