File:Robert Cocke Miami 1984.jpg

Painting by Robert D. Cocke, Miami (oil on canvas, 36" x 42", 1984). The image illustrates a key early body of work in Robert Cocke's career in the 1980s, when he produced expressionistic figurative paintings with a socio-critical dimension that drew on Chicago Imagism, Funk art and surrealism. These works depicted eerie, surreal scenarios of urban neglect and paradises lost in sinister blues, dark purples and acid hues, with Hieronymous Bosch-like compositions packed with disturbing figures, apocalyptic fires and smoke, and shattered remnants of science and culture that suggested wide-ranging allusions and metaphors. This work was publicly exhibited in prominent exhibitions, discussed in major art journals and daily press publications and acquired by major museums.

Artist Robert D. Cocke. Copyright held by the artist.

Robert D. Cocke

Entire artwork

Yes

The image serves an informational and educational purpose as the primary means of illustrating a key early body of work in Robert D. Cocke's career in the 1980s: his expressionistic figurative paintings with a socio-critical dimension that drew on Chicago Imagism, Funk art and surrealism. Critics described this imagery as exuberant, nightmarish and emotionally charged, with an underground-comic painting style, harsh palette, strident tonal qualities and an enigmatic sense space, while relating its disquieting vision of contemporary environmental and moral collapse to the art of Philip Guston and William Wiley. Because the article is about an artist and his work, the omission of the image would significantly limit a reader's understanding and ability to understand this early stage and body of work, which brought Cocke initial recognition through survey exhibitions and coverage by major critics and publications. Cocke's work of this type and this series is discussed in the article and by critics cited in the article.

There is no free equivalent of this or any other of this series by Robert D. Cocke, so the image cannot be replaced by a free image.

The image will not affect the value of the original work or limit the copyright holder's rights or ability to distribute the original due to its low resolution and the general workings of the art market, which values the actual work of art. Because of the low resolution, illegal copies could not be made.