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Benjamin Degen

Adjunct Instructor

Benjamin Degen (b. 1976 Brooklyn, NY) uses image-making as a process for learning/teaching, connection, vision, realization, and transformation. Degen
received his Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1998 from The Cooper Union. He founded and runs the Drawing Practice program, and has taught at Cooper Union, The
Rhode Island School of Design, The State University of New York at Purchase, Brooklyn College, Vassar College, Pioneer Works, The Brooklyn Museum and The Metropolitan Museum of Art. His work has been exhibited in galleries nationally and internationally, as well as in exhibitions at MoMA PS1, The Collezione Maramotti, The William Benton Museum of Art, and the Weatherspoon Art Museum. His artwork is held in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art, The Collezione Maramotti, The Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, and The Tang Museum.

Lightning Moon 48 x 60-1/2 in. Oil on panel. 2023.

  • Founded by inventor, industrialist and philanthropist Peter Cooper in 1859, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art offers education in art, architecture and engineering, as well as courses in the humanities and social sciences.

  • “My feelings, my desires, my hopes, embrace humanity throughout the world,” Peter Cooper proclaimed in a speech in 1853. He looked forward to a time when, “knowledge shall cover the earth as waters cover the great deep.”

  • From its beginnings, Cooper Union was a unique institution, dedicated to founder Peter Cooper's proposition that education is the key not only to personal prosperity but to civic virtue and harmony.

  • Peter Cooper wanted his graduates to acquire the technical mastery and entrepreneurial skills, enrich their intellects and spark their creativity, and develop a sense of social justice that would translate into action.