Howard Norton Cook left his childhood home in Springfield, Massachusetts in 1919 to receive formal training in New York at the Art Students League. While in New York, Cook studied under George Bridgman and attended an experimental class with Max Weber and Andrew Dasburg. He spent his time between sessions painting outdoor billboards and working in lithography and photo-engraving shops.
In 1922, Cook began work as an illustrator, contributing woodcuts and drawings to Harper's, Scribner's, Survey, Atlantic Monthly, and Forum. Various assignments allowed him to travel all over the world. Cook was on assignment for Forum to illustrate the serialization of Willa Cather's Death Comes to the Archbishop when he first visited New Mexico in 1926. Cook remained in New Mexico for a year and a half, during which time he met and married artist Barbara Latham.
During the next few years, the couple traveled to Paris where Cook studied in a prominent lithographic workshop; to Taxco, Mexico, where he studied fresco painting on a Guggenheim fellowship; and to the Deep South of the United States on a second Guggenheim fellowship.
In 1935, Cook and Latham settled in Taos, New Mexico. By that time, Cook had been represented in 50 Prints of the Year several times, yet his focus turned to fresco painting. He traveled across throughout the United States on mural commissions and, in 1937, the Architectural League of New York awarded Cook the Gold Medal for mural painting.
Cook later served in the Navy as an artist-war correspondent in the South Pacific. His paintings from that period were exhibited in the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., and later displayed across the U.S. in a traveling exhibition funded by the War Department. After returning from the war, Cook produced several powerful lithographs depicting his experiences in the South Pacific. In 1949, he was elected to membership in the National Academy as a graphic artist.
During the 1940's, Cook was known for his watercolors set in New Mexico. Later paintings in oil became increasingly abstract. Some of the artist's favorite subjects included Southwestern landscapes and Indian dances that focused on conveying a strong sense of movement.
Throughout his career, Cook was a guest professor at many art schools and universities. In 1967, he became the first artist in residence at the Roswell Museum, Roswell, NM. Howard Cook remained in New Mexico until his death in 1980.
Exhibited: Philadelphia, 1929 (prize), 1933 (prize); Brooklyn Society of Etchers, 1931 (prize); 50 Prints of the Year, 1931-35; Warsaw, 1933 (prize); Art Institute of Chicago, 1933 (Logan Medal), 1934, 1935 (prize), 1936-46; Society of American Etchers, 1934 (prize), 1936 (prize); Philadelphia Artists Alliance, 1934 (prize); Philadelphia Print Club, 1937 (prize); Architectural League of New York, 1937 (gold for mural painting); Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, 1939-53; American
Artists for Victory, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1942 (medal), 1951; Rehn Gallery, 1945; Kennedy Gallery, 1945; Whitney Museum of American Art; Brooklyn Museum; California Watercolor Society; Springfield Museum of Fine Art; Weyhe Gallery (solo exhibits); Corcoran Gallery, 1953; National Academy of Design, 1963 (Samuel F.B. Morse gold medal); Detroit Public Library Mural Exhibit, 1956; Kennedy Gallery, New York, 1970's; Mission Gallery, Taos, New Mexico, 1970's.
Works held: Metropolitan Museum of Art; Museum of Modern Art; Whitney Museum of American Art; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Minneapolis Art Institute; Baltimore Museum of Art; Fogg Art Museum, Harvard; Mattatuck Historical Society, Waterbury, Connecticut; New York Public Library; Art Institute of Chicago; Hamilton College; Lehigh University; Newark Museum; Princeton; Public Library, Springfield, Massachusetts; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Courthouse (fresco mural commissioned 1936 by the Section of Fine Art); Post Office building, Corpus Christi, Texas (2 tempera murals, 1941); Federal Building, San Antonio, Texas (16 mural panels, 1937-39); Mayo Clinic Diagnostic Building, Rochester, Minnesota (mural, 1952-54); Victoria & Albert (two fresco murals commissioned by the W.P.A. for the Law Library Springfield, Massachusetts, 1934); British Museum; Bibliothéque Nationale, Paris; kupferstich Kabinett, Berlin.
Further Reading: Artists of 20th-Century New Mexico: the Museum of Fine Arts Collection, Museum of New Mexico Press for the Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe, 1992.; The Illustrated Biographical Encyclopedia of Artists of the American West, Peggy and Harold Samuels, Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, New York, 1976.; Modernist Themes in New Mexico: Works by Early Modernist Painters, Barbara G. Bell, Gerald Peters Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 1989.; Taos Artists and Their Patrons, 1898-1950, Dean A. Porter, Tessa Hayes Ebie and Suzan Campbell, Snite Museum of Art, University of Notre Dame, 1999.; Texas Painters, Sculptors and Graphic Artists: A Biographical Dictionary of Artists in Texas before 1942, John and Deborah Powers with a foreword by Ron Tyler, Woodmont Books, Austin, Texas, 2000.; Who Was Who in American Art 1564-1975: 400 Years of Artists in America, Vol. 1. Peter Hastings Falk, Georgia Kuchen and Veronica Roessler, eds., Sound View Press, Madison, Connecticut, 1999. 3 Vols.
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