George M. Cohen

George Cohen was the eldest figure in the Monster Roster, a group of post-war Chicago artists known for their dark, unsettling aesthetic. Cohen, however, did not like this moniker, stating “A Chicago critic later called what we had done ‘Monster Art,’ an unfortunate term that described a small facet of it all and helped to bury the rest of what we were doing...critics are the true anti-cultural agents.” His time at the University of Chicago—having received an MA and PhD in art history in 1948—was influential on his artistic practice and fostered an interest in Etruscan and Roman painting.