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Howard Norton Cook
'Soaring New York' — 1930s American Modernism, New York City

1931-32

About the Item

Howard Cook, 'Soaring New York', aquatint, soft-ground etching, roulette, 1931-32, edition 25, Duffy 165. Signed, dated, and annotated 'imp' in pencil. A superb, richly-inked, atmospheric impression, in warm black ink on cream wove paper; the full sheet with margins (1 1/4 to 1 3/4 inches, deckle all around), in excellent condition. Printed by the artist. Scarce. Image size 8 15/16 x 11 13/16 inches; sheet size 11 3/8 x 15 1/4 inches. Matted to museum standards, unframed. ABOUT THIS WORK The artist uses three different intaglio techniques in this work to capture the gritty energy of New York City's monumental skyline. The view looks south from midtown, with the Empire State Building in the center background and the Chrysler Building on the left. Collections: Dallas Museum of Art, Georgetown University Library, National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum, University of New Mexico. ABOUT THE ARTIST 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 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. Cook’s work in the print mediums received acclaim early in his career with one-person exhibitions at the Denver Art Museum (1927) and the Museum of New Mexico (1928). He received 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. His first Guggenheim Fellowship took him to Taxco, Mexico in 1932 and 1933; his second in the following year enabled him to travel through the American South and Southwest. Cook painted murals for the Public Works of Art Project in 1933 and the Treasury Departments Art Program in 1935. The latter project, completed in Pittsburgh, received a Gold Medal from the Architectural League of New York. One of his most acclaimed commissions was a mural in the San Antonio Post Office in 1937. He and Barbara Latham settled in Talpa, south of Taos, in 1938 and remained there for over three decades. Cook volunteered in World War II as an Artist War Correspondent for the US Navy, where he was deployed in the Pacific. In 1943 he was appointed Leader of a War Art Unit and served in the Solomon Islands in the Asiatic-Pacific Theater. During the later period of his career, he concentrated increasingly on painting, leaving home from time to time to take on visiting professor assignments at various universities. 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, and then due to Cook's ill health, the couple moved to Santa Fe in 1976. Cook’s graphic work is in many major museum collections, including the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts; Albuquerque Museum; Art Institute of Chicago; Baltimore Museum of Art; Bibliothèque Nationale de France; British Museum, London; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art; Detroit Museum of Art; Fogg Art Museum, Harvard; Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell; Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth; Metropolitan Museum of Art; M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco; Museum of Fine Arts Boston; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Smithsonian American Art Museum; U. S. Library of Congress; and the Whitney Museum of American Art.
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