From an early age, Rebecca was drawn to museums founded by extraordinary collectors: The Frick Collection in New York, The Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum in Boston, The Phillips Collection in Washington, DC, The Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice. Reading the biographies of their often-eccentric founders, she became fascinated with the psychology of collecting, captivated by why people collect what they collect. For four years, she explored this interest through co-authoring the “100 Top Collector’s List” for Art and Antiques magazine. She also wrote more in-depth profiles of important collectors, museum collections and contemporary artists for Art in America, Art on Paper, Art & Auction, Art Review, Flash Art, Frieze, and Sculpture Magazine.

Simultaneously, she honed her knowledge of contemporary art while working at the Jack Tilton Gallery in New York, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, and the Atlanta College of Art Gallery. In 2004, Cochran was able to explore the creation of a collection from the inside when she became the curator for Sue and John Wieland. In her fifteen years at the Wieland Collection she handled the acquisition of new work, cataloged and maintained the collection database, researched and provided insurance values for the work, wrote and published a 350-page catalog, oversaw three traveling exhibitions, and designed the installation of the collection in the wareHOUSE, a 21,000 square foot exhibition space.

She launched Cochran Arts to provide similar services to collectors throughout the Southeast. In 2019, she added appraisals to her list of skills with the completion of the CASP Program at the Appraisal Institute of America. She became an Associate Member of the Appraiser’s Association of American (AAA) later that year and in 2024 became a Certified Member in Post-War, Contemporary and Emerging Art, the highest distinction awarded by the AAA.

Cochran holds a Masters Degree from the Royal College of Art in London, a Certificate in the Fine and Decorative Arts from Sotheby’s Institute, London and a Bachelors of Fine Art from the Maine College of Art. She has taught courses on Collecting and on Modern and Contemporary Art for the High Museum of Art, the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center and the Continuing Education department of the Atlanta College of Art.