Howard Cook

The couple married in May 1927. From 1928 to 1935, they traveled: to Europe, Mexico and the American South. Working for New Deal art projects, Cook produced murals for courthouses in Pittsburgh (Section of Painting and Sculpture) and Springfield, Massachusetts (Public Works of Art Project). He also produced a 16-panel fresco, The Importance of San Antonio in Texas History, in a San Antonio post office, for which he was paid $12,000 in 1937. In 1938, the couple settled near Taos on the Talpa ridge. This became their base until 1976. In 1943 Cook was appointed to lead a World War II art unit in the Asiatic-Pacific Theater. His team accompanied the U.S. Army's 43rd Infantry Division throughout the region, including the Solomon Islands, New Hebrides and Phoenix Islands. After six months Cook returned home on a medical discharge. Drawings and watercolors from Cook's war experiences in the South Pacific were part of the touring exhibition The Army at War: A Graphic Record by American Artists (1944), sponsored by the Treasury Department. In 1967, Cook became the first artist in the Roswell Museum and Art Center's Artist-in-Residence program. The couple started to spend their winters in Roswell, New Mexico, where they eventually moved in 1973. Due to Cook's ill health, the couple moved to Santa Fe in 1976.

Howard Cook studied at Art Students League of New York. Work by Howard Cook is recorded in the collections of National Gallery of Victoria, Minneapolis Institute of Art, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Auckland Art Gallery and Whitney Museum of American Art. Distinctions recorded are Guggenheim Fellowship.

• Name — Howard Cook • Born — 16 July 1901 • Birthplace — Springfield, Massachusetts • Died — 24 June 1980 • Place of death — Santa Fe, New Mexico • Education — Andrew Dasburg Maurice Sterne • Alma Mater — Art Students League of New York • Known for — Printmaking, watercolors, frescos • Style — expressionistic, abstract, realistic • Spouse — Barbara Latham • Awards — Guggenheim Fellowships in 1932, 1934

• Metropolitan Museum of Art • Whitney Museum of American Art • Fogg Art Museum • Harvard University • Baltimore Museum of Art • Art Institute of Chicago • Bibliothèque Nationale de France • British Museum • Albuquerque Museum • Smithsonian American Art Museum