Jacqueline Cotter, 97, abstract painter and “a quintessential Philadelphia artist”

Jacqueline Cotter, 97, a Philadelphia artist known for the abstract paintings she began creating at midlife after raising five children, died Sunday, July 22, of pneumonia at Pennsylvania Hospital.

Mrs. Cotter was a Bala Cynwyd resident from 1952 to 2006, when she moved to Atria Center City, a facility for seniors.

Although Mrs. Cotter lived well into her 10th decade, she didn't begin her career as a painter until 1970, at age 49. She delayed her art work to raise a family, knowing that she could never regard her painting as a hobby, according to the Woodmere Art Museum. A half dozen of her paintings are among the Chestnut Hill museum's 8,000 works of art, said director William R. Valerio.

"It wasn't until her five children were older that she felt she had the ability to create any sort of uninterrupted time to devote to her painting," fellow artist Bill Scott posted in a tribute online.

Over the next 40 years, Mrs. Cotter emerged as one of Philadelphia's leading abstract painters, said Valerio. She was in the second generation of artists to follow Arthur B. Carles, a Philadelphia modernist painter, who lived from 1882 to 1952.

"I think you can describe her as a quintessential Philadelphia artist," Valerio said. "This was her hometown, a city she loved. She wasn't driven by ambition. She came to her career late in life. She was happy to be a Philadelphia artist, who loved to paint and found satisfaction in abstract paintings."

Toward the end of her life, Mrs. Cotter described what was at the core of her artistic vision for the Senior Artists Initiative.

"[My] paintings," she wrote, "are snapshots of places where thought and feeling interact, collage-like areas in which the linear and gestural merge in collaborations of color."

Brimming with expressive brushwork and color, the paintings appealed to Philadelphia art critics such as Edith Newhall. Writing in the May 23, 2010, Inquirer, she said: "Jacqueline Cotter's recent abstract paintings at Rosenfeld Gallery are remarkable for compositions that seem wrought from current and past geological events and for their combinations of earthy and simmeringly intense colors. Her In the Wings, Change of Plans, and Spreading the Blues combine these qualities with sublime results."

Mrs. Cotter continued working as an artist into her 90s until macular degeneration and glaucoma forced her to stop. She was very frustrated at the gradual loss of vision.

"I haven't come to terms with it yet," Mrs. Cotter said in Exquisite Vision, a film by John Thornton. "I'm mad. I'm not sorry for myself. I mean, I'm 89 years old, so you have to have some [loss], but why does it have to be my eyes?"

As she lost her sight, though, she gained a simpler, looser artistic style. It is "more focused, more profound and pure than ever," the film's narrator said.

"Painting is your mind, your eyes, your hands. To take away one of the trio, it has to have an impact," Valerio said.

In 2011, Mrs. Cotter approached Woodmere, offering to donate half a dozen of her paintings.

"I was the person that worked with her on the acquisitions," Valerio said. "She said she was not getting any younger and she wondered if Woodmere was interested in having a donation. I said we would be glad to have it. The acquisitions committee was with me on this."

Red Zinger was recently on exhibit, and others will be shown as their subject matter warrants, Valerio said.

Over the course of her career, Mrs. Cotter's paintings were displayed in solo shows at private Philadelphia art galleries, museums, art centers, and university art galleries. She participated in 17 juried and group art exhibits. She won numerous awards from local art clubs and institutions.

Born in Philadelphia, Mrs. Cotter grew up in Wyncote. She graduated from Cheltenham High School and Colby-Sawyer College in New London, N.H. She studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the Fleisher Art Memorial.

In April 1943, before World War II, she interrupted her art studies to join the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps. The WAACs, as they were known, were the first women other than nurses to serve in the Army. Mrs. Cotter commanded a group of 250 women. She was honorably discharged in October 1944 with the rank of first lieutenant.

After Mrs. Cotter met Richard L. Cotter while a WAAC and married him in 1944, she devoted herself to the domestic sphere. She became a skilled cook and seamstress. "She made my interview suit for my first job," said her daughter, Stephanie Parke. "She was a good mother and an excellent role model especially for me, as a woman, and for my brothers. She was respected by her children."

Once Mrs. Cotter switched to painting, she was totally immersed, her daughter said.

In addition to her career as an artist, Mrs. Cotter was an office manager at various times at Bryn Mawr College, Lankenau Medical Center, and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. It was at the academy that she mingled with other artists and saw the administrative end of the art world, Valerio said.

Mrs. Cotter was the daughter of Virginia Wood and Louis Walton Sipley. Her husband died in 1992 at age 73. Four sons, Richard L. Jr., David D., Mark J., and Bryan W. Cotter, also died earlier.

Besides her daughter, Stephanie, she is survived by three grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Funeral plans were pending.