Colin Campbell Cooper, Jr. (March 8, 1856 – November 6, 1937) was an American impressionist painter of architectural paintings, especially of skyscrapers in New York City, Philadelphia, and Chicago.

[3] His father, Dr. Colin Campbell Cooper, whose grandfather came from Derry, Ireland,[2] was a surgeon[4] and a lawyer with a great appreciation for the arts.

[4] Afterwards, his art education resumed at the Académie Julian in Paris from 1886 to 1890,[7] with Henri Lucien Doucet,[4] William-Adolphe Bouguereau, and Jules Joseph Lefebvre.

[7] He traveled extensively throughout his life, sketching and painting scenes of Europe, Asia, and the United States in watercolors and oils.

[10] Many of Cooper's paintings were destroyed in an 1896 fire at Philadelphia's Hazeltine Galleries; as a result, relatively little of his early work exists today.

During this period, as Cooper painted architectural landmarks, he developed the Impressionist style which he used for the rest of his artistic career.

It was intensely interesting to watch the freakishness disappear from those queer towering structures in the glory of the right kind of light".

[16] In another interview, he had stated that "one of the points that most strikes me about this view up Broad Street is the dramatic contrast between the old, low type of buildings ... and the great skyscrapers.

But the smaller watercolors were not mere sketches for his own use; they were finished pieces which he exhibited, sometimes years earlier than the larger corresponding oil paintings that he would ultimately produce.

[27] He spent two years in northern Europe and Tunisia and became Dean of Painting at the Santa Barbara Community School of Arts.

[19] Cooper said of his new environment: "I find Santa Barbara so conducive to the sort of things a painter most craves – climate, flowers, mountains, seascapes, etc.

"[28] But he hadn't abandoned that "artistic universe of America", New York City, as he continued to maintain a studio there for ten years after his move to California.

[27] Another aspect of his creativity became evident starting in the mid-1920s, as, perhaps influenced by his father's great love of literature,[3] he began writing plays and books.

[3] Several months before his death, however, Cooper initiated the effort to convert the abandoned post office building into an art museum in a letter to the editor of the Santa Barbara News-Press in July 1937.