High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Robert Cottingham (Born 1935 in Brooklyn, New York) is considered to be one of most important original Photorealist painters. Cottingham`s work focuses on items associated as Americana. He studied art at Brooklyn`s Pratt Institute. His first solo show was in 1971 at the O.K. Harris Gallery in New York. A retrospective of Cottingham`s work took place at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in 1998.