TidesNet—Online Collections Entry Detail

DescriptionA large wood engraving print (12 1/16”/30.6 cm x 10 1/8”/25.7 cm) titled “Fog in Eastport” completed in 1928 and is the work of American printmaker, Howard Norton Cook. Cook was born in 1901 in Springfield, Massachusetts and is particularly known for his wood engravings and murals. He learned printmaking from Joseph Pennell at the Art Students League in New York City in the early 1920s. From 1928 to 1935, he and his wife and fellow artist, Barbara Latham, traveled to Europe, Mexico and the American South. In 1928, Cook spent a summer on Deer Island, New Brunswick with Barbara. He did several wood engravings and and etchings while in the area and original prints of almost all are in the collections of the Tides Institute including “Fog in Eastport,” “Herring Fisherman,” “Quoddy Bay,” and “Deer Island.” Working for New Deal on art projects in the 1930s, Cook produced murals for courthouses in Pittsburgh and Springfield, Massachusetts. From the late 1920s to the early 1930s, he and Barbara lived primarily in New York City and the city’s ongoing construction was a major subject of his art. In 1938, the couple settled near Taos, New Mexico. Cook had first come to Taos, New Mexico in 1926 to complete a series of woodcuts to illustrate Death Comes for the Archbishop for the magazine Forum. Taos remained the couple’s base until 1976. Cook died in 1980. Artist: Howard Cook Medium: Wood engraving Classification: Prints Circa: 1928 Old Accession Number: 208