He produced a young adult novel and a children's play later in his life, but is known for his numerous decorated murals exhibited within the United States and Ghana.
Cooper was recognized in 2013 as a "Living Legacy Artist" by the Burchfield Penney Art Center.
Despite being drafted, he was able to continue his artistic endeavors while serving for 18 months because he was the author and illustrator of the training brochures to be handed out to the U.S. Army Command stationed in Europe.
[1][3] Prior to 1995, Cooper owned an African art importing business called Bora Sanaa for fifteen years.
Locations such as Niagara Falls, Buffalo, Birmingham, Atlanta, Albany, Washington, D.C., Ontario, and Ghana are examples of places where his art was and is exhibited.
[7][6] He exhibited his art in five solo shows since 1971 in Niagara Falls, Buffalo, and Ghana, West Africa.
[3] Cooper was one of only ten artists who were chosen to be a part of the project called "Art Across Borders" for the Pan American Exhibition.
[7] Several of his pieces are in the Castellani Art Museum in Niagara Falls, New York, as part of its permanent collection.
The Arts Council in Buffalo & Erie County honored Cooper for two consecutive years.
[7] He earned a New York State Council on the Arts DEC Grant in 1996, and then the Annual Professional Artist Award in 1997.
[7] The Burchfield Penney Art Center selected Cooper to be a "Living Legacy" artist in 2013.
African-American contributions to American culture, like jazz music, and West African influences form his works.
The composition forces the viewer to think about what he believes Cooper created, however, each person interprets his works differently according to their own experiences and lives.
[5] Cooper was also commissioned to create portraits of influential Western New York African-Americans such as James Bell and Geneva B.
[5] It takes place in 1955 Alabama when a young boy named Denmark and his friend are kidnapped during the famous bus boycott in Montgomery while on a mission to find his father.
A nine-year-old girl named Nakai living in Africa found an American Sears catalog with a pair of red shoes she craved to have, but could not afford.