Samuel Cooper was born on December 2, 1913 in Wawarsing, Ulster County, New York. His father, Morris Cooper, was born in 1878 in Russia and came to the U.S. in 1905. His mother, Anna Cooper, was born in 1885 in Austria and came to the U.S. in 1899. Both of his parents were of Jewish ancestry. They met in New York and married in 1908. They had three children, Joseph (b.1909), Paul (b.1910) and Samuel (b.1913). At first the father worked as a farmer.
By 1920 the Cooper family had moved to New York City, where they lived at 15 Avenue D on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where the father worked in a restaurant as a Cook's Assistant.
By 1925 the family had moved to 384 Keap Street in Brooklyn, where the father worked in another restaurant as a Chef's Helper.
In 1928 the family moved to 1433 Vyse Avenue in the Bronx, where the father worked in the kitchen at a hotel and eventually became the Head Chef.
In 1932 at the age of eighteen Samuel Cooper graduated high school in the Bronx.
During the 1930s, at the time of the Great Depression, he studied art in NYC.
In 1940 Samuel Cooper was listed as a "Freelance Artist", living with his parents and two older brothers at 1207 Vyse Avenue in the Bronx. The occupation of his older brother, Paul Cooper, is listed as "house painter" in the field of "real estate." It is possible that the older brother may have been the artist that signed his work "Paul Cooper," who worked at the same time for the same publishers as Sam Cooper, although his work has a distinctly different style.
In 1941 Samuel Cooper began to paint covers for pulp magazines. His work appeared on Famous Detective, Famous Western, Western Action, and Western Yarns.
He also drew pen and ink story illustrations that appeared in Crack Detective and 10-Story Detective.
Aside from his work for pulp magazines, Samuel Cooper also drew for comic books. His work appeared in comic produced by Ace, ACG, MLJ, Better, Chesler, D. S. Publishing, Fawcett, Fox, Harvey, Hillman, Lev Gleason, Marvel, Timely and Quality Comics.
By 1955 the popular culture industry that produced pulp magazines and comic books was devastated by changing tastes and political events. Like most of the artists that had worked for these publications, Samuel Cooper was forced to look in other fields to find a new source of income.
Samuel Cooper died at the age of sixty-nine in NYC on October 1, 1983.
© David Saunders 2014 |
