The young artist was close to his father and through him, gained firsthand knowledge of courtrooms, police work and the detention of criminals.
[3] Cober would initially attend the University of Vermont, but later graduated in 1966 from the School of Visual Arts in New York City[4] where the young artist would learn the importance of drawing and seeing.
[8] Early in his career, Cober traveled the United States working on a commission received from the National Park Service.
His drawings were made on site at Mount Rushmore, Thomas Jefferson's home Monticello, the Battle of Gettysburg and Colonial Williamsburg.
[7] On assignment with The New York Times, Cober was provided access to the Willowbrook mental health facility in Staten Island.
Other popular performers who modeled for Cober were Mishu, billed as the "smallest man on earth", Philippe Petit, the high-wire artist who would later become famous for his highwire walk between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in 1974, as well as lion trainer, Gunther Gebel-Williams.
Cober drew their living conditions in their trailers, their families and pets, depicting a culture unknown to the audience who could only appreciate the circus from the bleachers.
[8] Among his many other notable journalistic assignments were his coverage of the shuttle liftoffs from Cape Canaveral for NASA, the 1980 presidential campaign of Jimmy Carter for TIME,[6] and in 1987 Cober traveled on the press plane to cover Pope John Paul's visit to the United States for Rolling Stone.
[8] His fascination with mental as well as physical decay and a compassion for social issues formed the foundation of his artistic themes throughout his career.
[10] Cober's aim as a visual journalist (which is what he called himself) was to effect change by graphically exposing what he determined as critically important to interpret at the time.
The exhibition title refers to prints Cober completed during 1991 as the Lamar Dodd Professorial Chair at the University Of Georgia.
[11] In 1992, the Katonah Museum of Art would display a thirty-year retrospective of Cober's visual reportage of news, culture and the environment.