Howard Cook: Prints from the C. William and Eleanor Reiquam Collection

Editor's note: The Harwood Museum provided source material to Resource Library Magazine for the following article or essay. If you have questions or comments regarding the source material, please contact the Harwood Museum directly through either this phone number or web address:

505.758.9826
http://harwood.unm.edu/

Howard Cook: Prints from the C. William and Eleanor Reiquam Collection

Howard Cook (1901-1980) was one of the best known of the second generation of artists who moved to Taos. Beginning his association with Taos in 1926, he became a resident of the community in the 1930s. Cook remained until 1972 when he relocated to Roswell, New Mexico. His career accomplishments included two Guggenheim Fellowships, election as Academician in the National Academy of Design and numerous prizes and awards from art competitions. He developed a national reputation as a painter and muralist, but was also one of the premier American printmakers of his time. While his printmaking spanned five decades, perhaps his best work, as well as the greater part of his output, was made in the 1920s and 1930s. (left: Taos Pueblo - Smokes, 1927, woodcut, Harwood Museum)

The Harwood Museum of Art will feature a selection of these in an exhibition, Howard Cook: Prints from the C. William and Eleanor Reiquam Collection. Mr. and Mrs. Reiquam, print collectors from Denver, Colorado, have donated an important collection of more than one hundred American prints to the Harwood over the past three years. Included in this major gift to the museum have been many prints by Cook, including lithographs, woodcuts, wood engravings, etchings, and aquatints. Sixteen of these will be on display in the George E. Foster Jr. Gallery for Prints, Drawings and Photographs.

The exhibition began November 9th and continues through February 10, 2002.

The prints represent a cross section of some of Cook's finest work from the first two decades of his printmaking career. They include pictures made in the Southwest, in New England and New York, and images of people.

Additional biographical material on Howard Cook:

Cook, a native of Massachusetts, studied at the Art Students League in New York City and at the Woodstock, New York art colony. There he met and developed a lifelong friendship with Andrew Dasburg (1887-1979) who was one of New Mexico's premier painters. He met Barbara Latham during his first trip to Taos, marrying her in 1927. His prints were recognized from early in his career with one-person exhibitions at the Denver Art Museum (1927) and the Museum of New Mexico (1928). He won numerous honors and awards over the years, including selection in best-of-the-year exhibitions sponsored by the American Institute of Graphics Arts, the Brooklyn Museum, the Society of American Etchers, and the Philadelphia Print Club, among many others. (left: Giant's Thumb, 1927, woodcut, Harwood Museum)

His first Guggenheim Fellowship took him to Taxco, Mexico in 1932 and 1933; his second in the following year allowed him to travel through the American South and Southwest. Cook also painted murals for the Public works of Art Project in 1933 and for the Section of Fine Arts of the Treasury Department in 1935. The latter project, completed in Pittsburgh, won him a Gold Medal from the Architectural League of New York. One of his most major and most successful commissions was for a mural in the San Antonio Post Office in 1937.

He and Barbara Latham settled in Talpa, south of Taos, by the end of the 1930s and remained there for over three decades. During the remainder of his career he concentrated increasingly on painting, leaving home from time to time to take on visiting professor assignments at several universities. He also volunteered in World War II as a Artist War Correspondent where he saw action in the Pacific. By the time he moved from Talpa to Roswell in 1972, he had forged one of the most successful careers of any New Mexico artist of his time.

The leading reference on his prints is The Graphic Work of Howard Cook, A Catalogue Raisonné by Betty and Douglas Duffy. This catalog is available through the Harwood Museum gift shop.

Label text from the exhibition gallery:

Howard Norton Cook (1901-1980) was one of the best known of the second generation of artists who moved to Taos. A native of Massachusetts, he studied at the Art Students League in New York City and at the Woodstock, New York art colony. Beginning his association with Taos in 1926, he became a resident of the community in the 1930s. During his career he received two Guggenheim Fellowships and was elected an Academician in the National Academy of Design. He earned a national reputation as a painter, muralist, and printmaker. (left: New England Church, 1935, wood engraving, Harwood Museum)

His prints were recognized from early in his career with one-person exhibitions at the Denver Art Museum (1927) and the Museum of New Mexico (1928). He won numerous honors and awards over the years, including selection in best-of-the-year exhibitions sponsored by the American Institute of Graphics Arts, the Brooklyn Museum, the Society of American Etchers, and the Philadelphia Print Club, among many others. Cook became an award winning muralist, an art professor, and an artist war correspondent in the Pacific theater during World War II, By the time he moved from Taos in 1972, he had become one of its most successful artists.

RL Editor's note:

The following TFAO photo library image allow viewers of the artwork above to compare a photographic image with the artist's interpretation of the scene. Volunteers are invited to survey the images of paintings and sculptures contained in Resource Library and choose related scenes for photography.

Read more articles and essays concerning this institutional source by visiting the sub-index page for the Harwood Museum in the Resource Library Magazine

For further biographical information please see America's Distinguished Artists, a national registry of historic artists.

This page was originally published in Resource Library Magazine. Please see Resource Library's Overview section for more information. rev. 11/28/11

Search Resource Library for thousands of articles and essays on American art.