Alfred Heaton Cooper

Alfred Heaton Cooper was, arguably, the most famous and successful Lake District artist of his time, renowned for his detailed watercolours and guide book illustrations. After his London student days, Alfred returned briefly to the north of England, retracing Turner's journey through the famous beauty spots of Yorkshire, before visiting Morocco, and then setting off to the Norwegian fjords to make his living selling landscape pictures to the European tourists who went there in great numbers.
	He was fascinated by the rural peasant life of the people of the Sogne region. He studied them and their language and eventually wrote and illustrated a guide book to the fjords. He married a local girl and built a studio beside the fjord at Balestrand. Alfred could not make an adequate living in Norway, and he lived partly there and partly in England, returning with his bride in 1894. He settled first back in Bolton, moving to Southport and finally to the Lake District, where wealthy tourists promised a better livelihood.
The red roofed log cabin which Alfred had shipped from Norway caused quite a stir when it was first erected in Coniston village as a studio, but his expectations of the wealthy tourists were not fulfilled sufficiently for Alfred to sustain his growing family. More people seemed to be visiting Ambleside than Coniston so the log studio was moved to Wansfell Road in Ambleside, then later to its present site on lake Road.		The Ark in the 1960's

Alfred now settled to a life of continuous painting. Mathilde, his wife, ran the studio while he tramped the Lakeland fells and valleys, finding scenes which inspired him and which would appeal to visitors. He would be amazed now to see thousands of his pictures sold annually from the Grasmere studio which bears his name.		Today the Log Cabin is: The Log House Restaurant It still stands on the site towards Waterhead as seen in the photograph above.
A new biography, by Jane Renouf, available from the Museum Shop, tells the full story.

For more information about the Heaton Cooper family of artists (Alfred, William and Julian), visit the Heaton Cooper website