At 86 she started an art gallery. Now almost 98, she’s not stopping any time soon

For those lucky enough to make it to 86 years old, it’s understandable that only a few will remain in workforce. 

Audrey Cooper, by her own admission, is a bit different. When she was 86, she opened her first art gallery: Art With Panache. The gallery is located in the Talbot Centre a shopping space in downtown London at the intersection of Richmond and Fullarton Streets. 

Now 12 years later with a few weeks to go until her 98th birthday, Cooper continues to run the gallery she started late in life after deciding she wanted to stop painting and focus on promoting other artists. 

“I love talking to the artists about what they create,” she said. “I love being surrounded by colour.” 

Art With Panache certainly catches the eye. Its walls are filled with vibrant paintings known to draw in people passing by on their way to the mall’s RBC branch or food court. 

Billed as a gallery run by local artists, Art with Panache lets them hang their work for free, and collects a commission of each piece that sells. 

Cooper says it’s a business built up contact by contact, with her key role to connect customers to artists whose work suits their taste.

“You want the business to show what the artists in London are trying to get across to the public,” she said. “Original art is not always understood by a lot of people. But original work always has a bit of the artist’s heart in it.”

Cooper admits she came to loving art later in life.  

She grew up in Toronto in between the two World Wars, a time when the number of career options for women were limited.

“In my time, the only jobs that were really open to young girls was secretary, nurse, teacher, nun,” she said. “We were expected to go to work at 16.”  

She got married, raised four children then, in her 30s, Cooper went out on her own. Or as she describes it: “I busted out.”

She turned her training in secretarial work into a business that helped customers produce documents. 

Then, in the 1970s she sold her business and moved to London thinking she was headed for retirement. That’s when Cooper began to develop a keen interest in art, and started hanging out with other artists. 

“I got involved with the art community here and I just fit in so well with them,” she said. “So I began to paint.” 

For about 10 years, Cooper painted works she describes a “urban folk art.” Many depict crowd scenes from her youth with scores of cartoon-like characters. Some are on display in her gallery, including one that depicts a packed midway at Sunnyside Beach in west Toronto.

In another painting, Cooper captures the crowds making a summer trip to the Toronto Islands aboard a steam ship. 

She stopped painting in her mid-80s about the time she decided to get into the art business.

“I started an art gallery, I mean, why not?” she jokes. “The emerging artists from London needed a place to sell their work.” 

It’s a busy spot. On the day CBC News dropped by, an artist with experience living on London’s streets was hanging his work on the gallery walls. A cluster of other artists, women in their senior years, sat around a table ready to meet with customers. 

Last year, Cooper was named to the Mayor’s honour list for her contributions to art. 

Starting Sept. 20, Art With Panache will have a special exhibition of works by artists expressing their feelings about Canadian nationalism. It’s a response to the current political climate, with Canada’s sovereignty under threat by the Trump administration. 

She has no plans to quit or even wind down the business any time soon.

New multi-storey residential buildings under construction on nearby Talbot Street will bring more customers, new condo units with bare walls in need of local art.

“It’s a purpose and it’s not just work,” said Cooper. “It’s just something I really love doing. It keeps me going.”