Caroline Coon

Caroline Mary Thompson Coon (born 23 March 1945) is an English artist known for her paintings, feminist political activism, writing, and photography. After coming to prominence first as a leader of the British Underground counterculture of the 1960s, and then in the vanguard of the punk rock movement of the 1970s, she is recognised today as a foremost figurative painter in contemporary British art, with her work included in landmark survey exhibitions at London's Hayward Gallery and Tate Britain. While at Central School of Art in 1967, Coon co-founded the charity Release, which provided legal services for those arrested on drug possession charges. In the 1970s, earning money as a freelance journalist, including writing for Melody Maker, she became conscious of the zeitgeist change in youth culture which she christened the punk rock movement. Her photographs of the early punk days are now published and exhibited throughout the world. Coon managed The Clash from 1978 to 1980, through two significant tours in the UK and North America. Since the early 1980s, Coon's primary focus has been her oil paintings which regularly feature women and men, both clothed and nude, in scenes that often contest the misogyny of patriarchy. With reference points as varied as Pauline Boty, Lorenzo Lotto, Artemisia Gentileschi and Henri Rousseau, her work has been compared to that of Paul Cadmus, Tamara de Lempicka, Gluck and Christian Schad. Since 2022, she has been represented by Stephen Friedman Gallery.