Wood Interior by Howard Norton Cook

This is a delicate wood engraving by noted American printmaker Howard Norton Cook. It is titled Wood Interior and was issued in 1931 in a deluxe edition of 100 by The Checkerboard published by Weyhe Gallery. It shows a small clearing in a forest, but the treatment of the trees is quite modern. They are stylized with smooth, sinuous curves. The use of light and shadow (chiaroscuro) is masterful, with bright sunlight highlighting the lower center of the image with trees in light and shadow filling the rest of the scene. The canopy and the grass in the clearing almost mirror one another. Cook's subtlety with the engraving makes it an idyllic and idealized scene. A beautiful small engraving. This example is in excellent condition with rich inking on cream paper. It is signed and dated in pencil lower right Howard Cook imp. 1931. The title and date are also in pencil at the very lower edge of the sheet well away from the image. The only condition issue is some very slight toning of the paper. There are remnants of the hinge tape on the upper margin. Otherwise no tears, paper loss, stains, foxing, or fading. It is unframed. The sheet is 5.75 x 8.75 inches and the plate size is 4.125 x 6.5 inches. A beautiful example of this talented artist.

Howard Norton Cook (1901-1980) Howard Norton Cook was one of America’s pre-eminent printmakers. Born in Massachusetts, his formal art education began with a scholarship to the Art Students League in New York. He studied with several noted artists, but Max Weber and Joseph Pennell stand out given they were both accomplished printmakers. As was the case with many art students of the time, he generated income through illustrating magazines and billboards. He honed his printmaking skills creating woodcuts for national magazines such as Harpers Weekly and Atlantic Monthly among others. It was one of these assignments, creating illustrations for Willa Cather's Death Comes for the Archbishop that led him to visit Taos, New Mexico, an experience that changed his life in many ways. Most notably he met and subsequently married artist Barbara Latham. He also was immersed in the culture of New Mexico and created a series of prints depicting native American ceremonies, the architecture of the adobe buildings and pueblos, and the New Mexican landscapes. This culminated in a series of woodcuts of the Grand Canyon created in 1927 that were very popular and contributed to his rise as a noted artist. By 1935 his prints were chosen for 50 prints of the year 4 times!! He was a member of the Prairie Printmakers, one of the most influential artistic groups in the United States in the mid-20th century. In 1929 Cook and Latham traveled to Paris, and subsequently returned to New York City. He won two Guggenheim Fellowships. He ultimately focused more on painting, initially watercolors and ultimately oils. He and Latham moved back to New Mexico in 1935. He worked as part of the New Deal art project to paint several murals and in 1937 won the Gold Medal for mural painting by the Architectural League of New York. He served in the South Pacific in WWII as an artist/correspondent and led an art unit in the Asiatic-Pacific Theater. His team accompanied the U.S. Army's 43rd Infantry Division throughout the region, depicting that unit’s activity. After the war, he continued working and exploring new media (collage and pastel) and reinventing his style until he contracted multiple sclerosis. He received many accolades for his work including the SFB Morse Gold Medal in 1976 from the National Academy of Design, and several visiting professorships and artist in residence positions. His print work won many awards, including prizes from the Brooklyn Society of Etchers, the Society of American Etchers (twice), the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Philadelphia Print Club. His lifetime achievement in printmaking was recognized in 1949 by election to membership in the National Academy as a graphic artist. Four years after his death, a major retrospective of his work was exhibited at the National Museum of American Art in Washington, D.C. His work is held in most major collections, most notably the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the British Museum, and the Bibliothèque Nationale de France. His work is actively sought by collectors.