William Heaton Cooper RA (6 October 1903–1995) was an English impressionistic landscape artist who worked predominantly in watercolours, most famous for his paintings of the Lake District.
Alongside his painting, he became an authority on the lore and landscape of the Lake District, walking and rock climbing in its mountains with the pioneer climbers of the 1920s.
At the time of his father's death in 1929, William was living in the south of England in an experimental commune, which was home to a variety of people with artistic talents and was a source of inspiration for him.
A period of intense unhappiness followed, during which a search for inner peace and integrity led him on a religious quest, culminating in his adoption of the doctrines of the Oxford Movement.
The advent of improved colour printing techniques meant that more faithful reproductions of originals could be made, which enabled Heaton Cooper's popularity to spread.
[5] William's style of mountain painting is more impressionistic than his father's, with his knowledge of geology used to the full in his sometimes spare and skeletal depiction of crags and fells.