Julian Cooper was born in Grasmere in Cumbria in 1947 and studied at Lancaster Art School (1964-65) and Goldsmith's College of Art, London, (1965-69). He moved back to the Lake District in 1975 and although he has been based in Ambleside ever since, he is widely travelled and his rich expressionist, semi-abstract paintings have been strongly influenced by time spent in such far-flung places as the Peruvian Andes, Mont Blanc and the Himalayan mountains.