University to Honor Life and Work of Alan E. Cober, Distinguished Visiting Artist at UB for 11 Years

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- The University at Buffalo will honor the life and work of the late illustrator and teacher Alan E. Cober with a series of events that recognize his innovative and nationally distinguished work, collegial relationships with other artists of national distinction and the great influence he had on the many students he taught as visiting professor of art and Distinguished Visiting Artist at UB from 1987-96.

The exhibition, "Alan E. Cober: A Retrospective Afterlife," was organized by the Selby Gallery at the Ringling School of Art and Design, in Sarasota, Fla.

It will open Feb. 15 with a reception from 5-8:30 p.m. in the first floor gallery of the UB Gallery, Center for the Arts, North Campus, and will continue through May 18.

The reception will be accompanied by several activities in the Screening Room of the Center for the Arts. These include introductions by Sandra Olsen, gallery director, and remarks by UB President William R. Greiner and Kathleen Howell, an emeritus professor in the UB Department of Art, who brought Cober to the university.

Following these remarks, Adele Henderson, professor and chair of the UB Department of Art, and Ellen Cober, the widow of the artist, will present the first Alan E. Cober Scholarship to a UB student of illustration or graphic design.

After the presentation, "Drawing from Life," the first lecture in the Alan E. Cober Memorial Lecture Series, will be presented by Cober's colleague, artist Sue Coe, whose 30-year career in the U.S. has been marked by disturbing and controversial work that illustrates her outraged stand toward various social problems as she attempts to educate, influence and inspire change and action in her audience. The lecture is scheduled for 6:30 p.m.

Other lectures in the series will be delivered by illustrator Barbara Nessim at 6 p.m. April 11 in the Center for the Arts Screening Room, and Judy Garlan, art director for the Atlantic Monthly, at 6 p.m. April 25, also in the Screening Room.

Alan Cober frequently is cited as one of the most innovative illustrators America has produced. He was among a small cadre of post-World War II illustrators who inserted concepts drawn from modern art into an art form that then was dominated by sentimental realism.

Cober's work went beyond illustration to include an often shocking visual journalism -- pithy pen and ink drawings that critiqued social injustice, like The New York Times' illustrations of school children in Boston who still were segregated, despite laws to the contrary, and a wizened old man held as prey in a nursing home.

His work appeared regularly for decades in top American publications, including Time, Newsweek, Atlantic Monthly, Rolling Stone, Esquire, Life, Look and The New York Times. It was commissioned as well by NBC, CBS and a number of Fortune 500 companies.

He worked on adventure and mystery computer games and illustrated more than 23 books, including "The Tiger's Bones and Other Plays for Children" by the late Ted Hughes, poet laureate of England.

His own book, "The Forgotten Society," shocked the public with its graphic depiction of the lives and often miserable conditions of those incarcerated in retirement homes, prisons and mental institutions such as the New York State psychiatric facility at Willowbrook. In a later publication, "The Wake-up Call," he addressed other issues plaguing contemporary America -- drug addiction, AIDS, toxic chemicals and hazardous wastes.

Cober also was well-known as a dedicated and influential teacher of young artists, many of whom continue to express gratitude for his guidance in both aesthetic and professional realms that he imparted to them before his death in 1998 at age 62.

Ellen Cober, Nessim and Coe have donated some of the original drawings and sketchbooks in the exhibition so they can continue to be used as an educational resource at UB.

The exhibition and the lectures have been sponsored with the generous assistance and support from Brainstorm -- the Communicator's Club of Buffalo, the UB Department of Art and the UB Department of Art History.