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Ad Code: 3
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An example of work by George Esten Cooke
Artwork images are copyright of the artist or assignee
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This biography from the Archives of AskART:
|  George Cooke was born in 1793 in St. Mary's County, Maryland.
There he started as a merchant around 1810 and two years later had a
grocery and china business. In 1816, he married Maria Heath, and
after his business failed they went West from 1819-20. During this
period he began painting and completed 130 portraits in 28 months.
He
eventually returned to the East and was quite itinerant. From
July 1826-August 1831, he studied in Italy and France and also spent
time in Richmond (VA), 1824-26; Washington and New York City, 1834;
Charleston (SC), January-March 1836; Washington, 1837 and 1839;
Habersham County, Dahlonego and Athens (GA) 1840; New Orleans, Athens,
Augusta, and Columbus (GA) 1841-42; Pittsburgh (PA), autumn of 1843;
Memphis (Tenn) and Athens (GA), 1844; New Orleans, 1845-47; Pittsburgh,
June 1848; Washington, July 1848; Athens (GA) and New Orleans, 1849.
After
settling in New Orleans, he worked to establish a "National Gallery"
that exhibited the work of Cooke and other artists. It was
located in the top two floors of a warehouse provided by wealthy
industrialist, Daniel Pratt whom Cooke met in Georgia. Pratt
later built a gallery to show Cooke's paintings in Prattville, Alabama,
also the site of Cooke's grave.
Sources include:
Groce and Wallace, The New York Historical Society's Dictionary of Artists in America
Peter Falk, Who Was Who in American Art |
Biography from Charleston Renaissance Gallery:
| Born in St. Mary's County, Maryland, George Cooke showed a youthful
interest in art, but first attempted various unsuccessful business
endeavors, before teaching himself to paint by copying other portraits.
He began his itinerant career in 1821, based principally in
Washington, DC, while traveling to Richmond, Virginia and Montgomery,
Alabama, in search of portrait commissions. In Washington, Cooke
studied in 1824 with Charles Bird King, who became a friend and
colleague. In 1826, he departed with his wife for an extended
period of study and travel in Europe, training for the next five years
by copying Old Master paintings in Paris, Rome, Florence, Naples, and
England.
He returned to America in 1831, and resumed the life
of an itinerant artist, doing portraits to earn a scant living, but
also painting numerous landscapes and historical subjects that
represent his most ambitious works.
For more information on this artist or the Southern masterworks in our collection, please visit our gallery website.
This essay is copyrighted by the Charleston Renaissance Gallery and may not be reproduced or transmitted without written permission from the Hicklin Galleries, LLC
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Biography from The Columbus Museum-Georgia:
| George Cooke developed an interest in art at a young age, and although
he had an opportunity to study with Rembrandt Peale, the steep price of
instruction---$2000 for two years---meant that he would remain largely
self-taught for many years.
He worked in the mercantile trade but a decline in business eventually
led him to pick up the paintbrush again. His earliest artistic
forays included portrait commissions, which he received through the
intercession of family members and business contacts.
Cooke’s first formal art studies occurred in 1824 with the noted artist
Charles Bird King. (1) Several years later Cooke built on those
studies with an extended stay in Europe. He studied master
paintings in Paris, Milan, Florence, and Rome, making copies throughout
his five-year journey. These copies firmly indicate Cooke’s
desire to become a grand manner history painter. Yet he received
commissions for more modest paintings, including portraits and
landscape views. (2)
In 1831, Cooke returned to America and spent the next nine years
traveling throughout the Mid-Atlantic States from New York to North
Carolina.
Cooke first traveled to Georgia in 1840. He found welcoming
patrons in Augusta, Athens, Columbus, Dahlonega, Milledgeville and
Macon from 1842 to 1843. He journeyed to the cities around the
state from his residence in Athens. “Cooke lingered in Georgia,
always comparing the hospitality to that of ‘old Virginia in her palmy
days’.” (3)
He eventually settled further south in New Orleans where a patron’s
financial assistance enabled him to open his own National Gallery of
Painting. The gallery displayed paintings, which Cooke hoped to
sell, although he found little success with this economic venture.
(4) Many itinerant artists, including Cooke, journeyed through
the South plying their trade. During the nineteenth century, the visual
arts in smaller southern communities grew slowly and relied on
traveling artists to expose them to prevailing artistic trends.
The city of Columbus, Georgia, exemplified the patronage of itinerant
painters such as Cooke. During the years 1838 to 1854, newspaper
records indicate more than 10 painters traveled to Columbus, staying
weeks, months, or even years, setting up temporary quarters to sell
paintings and receive commissions. (5)
Sources include:
1. Joining Cooke in Washington, DC to study with King was John Gadsby Chapman, a distant cousin.
2. Marilou A. Rudolph, “George Cooke and His Paintings.” Georgia Historical Society Quarterly, XLIV, 2 (June 1960), 117-153. William Nathaniel Banks, “George Cooke, Painter of the American Scene.” Antiques
CII, 3 (September 1972), 448-454. Descriptive Catalogue of
Paintings in the Gallery of Daniel Pratt, Prattville, Alabama, Together
with a memoir of George Cooke, Artist (Prattville, Al, 1853).
3. Rudolph, 145.
4. Rudolph and Banks.
5. Newspaper clippings, Curatorial files, Columbus Museum. |
| ** If you discover credit omissions or have additional information to add, please let us know at registrar@AskART.com. |
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