The Cochran Collection

Beginnings of a Collection

The Cochran Collection began when Wes, as a very young man, worked on the oil rigs in the Middle East. William May, affectionately called "Sir William," encouraged the young Cochran, his nephew, to invest some of his wages in buying art. Wes would send money to Sir William and Sir William would buy prints of the Pop artists of the day to begin a collection for Wes. Sir William, at the time, was himself an ardent print collector. The 1200 prints he left in his collection spanned the entire 500-year history of printmaking. His prints were signed and dated from the Renaissance through the beginning of the 20th century. Sir William "the collector" acted as a broker and as an art consultant with an international clientele. Sir William began his collection by buying his first prints, (one Goya and one Picasso), from the Vincent Price art auctions and art sales in the old Sears and Roebuck Department stores. When Wes returned from his rig job he was thrilled and excited by Sir William's selections and has steadily continued, long after Sir William's death, building The Cochran Collection piece-by-piece.

Mildred Thompson (1936 - 2003)

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