This biography from the Archives of AskART:
| Frances Kerr Cook (1880-1949)
On September 18, 1906, David Carl Cook married Frances Lois Kerr in Tropico, California. She was the daughter of James and Lois (Hess) Kerr. [Just over a year prior to her marriage (1905), she had graduated from Stanford University with a Bachelor of Arts in English.] They were to have three children.
Frances Kerr developed a pleasant artistic ability and became skilled in human figure drawing as well as in painting watercolor seascapes and desert landscapes. “Grammy Frances” would pursue these drawings throughout her life, especially when she would convalesce in California after David C. Cook, Jr.’s death from pneumonia in March, 1932.
But Frances Kerr also discovered a commercial art talent that must have at least equaled her mother-in-law’s editorial skills. She provided line art for children’s book publishers like Foresman and the Albert Whitman Company.
Frances Kerr Cook lived until 1949, and established a business legacy by restructuring the publishing company (David C. Cook Publishing Company, Elgin, Illinois) to embody charitable purposes and to embrace modern concepts of communication.
Information courtesy of David C. Cook Publishing Company, Elgin, Illinois.
Submitted by Edward P. Bentley, researcher of Lansing, Michigan
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| | Born in West Union, IL on Sept. 24, 1880. Frances Kerr studied at the AIC. She wed publisher David Cook for whom she illustrated many children’s books. After her husband’s death in 1932, she established a second home in Los Angeles. She died there on Aug. 12, 1950. | Source:
Edan Hughes, "Artists in California, 1786-1940"
Who's Who in American Art 1936-41; Death record. | | Nearly 20,000 biographies can be found in Artists in California 1786-1940 by Edan Hughes and is available for sale ($150). For a full book description and order information please click here. |
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