User:Traceablecreations/Jeannine Cook

Jeannine Cook Jeannine Cook is a contemporary silverpoint and watercolor artist. She was born in Nairobi, Kenya and currently lives in coastal Georgia, United States.

Background
Cook was born in Nairobi, Kenya and grew up in Northern Tanzania. She obtained degrees from the Universities of Lille and the Sorbonnne (1960s) and the Ecole Française des Attachés de Presse, France (1970). She married scientist Albert Rundle Cook and moved to New York in 1970. A non-fiction writer, she has published articles and books on subjects ranging from history to silverpoint drawing. In addition to watercolor painting, she has specialized in silverpoint, drawing with a silver stylus on a prepared surface. A lecturer on silverpoint's history and techniques for museums and universities in the South, she also helped curate the 2009 Evansville Museum of Art "Luster of Silver" exhibition.

Style
Jeannine Cook was an early protagonist in the 1980s revival of silverpoint, a lustrous and intimate drawing medium dating from late Gothic/early Renaissance times in Europe and used by such artists as Leonardi da Vinci, Albrecht Dürer and Sandro Botticelli. Whilst many contemporary silverpoint artists remain true to the soft tonalities of traditional silverpoint, Cook has achieved a greater variety of tonal effects, often with an intensity of darks comparable to graphite. She frequently combines gold, copper, watercolor, thread or even photographs with silver in drawings that range from figurative to abstract. Much of her silverpoint work is executed plein air. She frequently uses this work to advocate for environmental causes, often as a result of artist residencies awarded by federal, state or private parks and preserves in the South East (such as the Sapelo Island Estuarine Research Reserve, Givhans Ferry State Park, South Carolina, or Spring Island, South Carolina). A residency at Les Amis de la Grande Vigne, Dinan, France, also provided an important backdrop to her work. Her frequent visits to Spain, Italy and France are also rich sources for her art.

Cook's work is usually executed on a small scale, since silverpoint drawing is labor-intensive and intimate. Her work is represented in many public collections, including those of New Hall Women's Art Collection at Cambridge University, England, Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, SC, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC, McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas, Telfair Museums, Savannah, GA, Cummer Museum of Art, Jacksonville, FL, Consell de Mallorca, Balearics Islands Government, Spain, North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, Raleigh, NC, Dr. Shirley A. Sherwood Collection, London, England, Evansville Museum of Arts, History and Science, Evansville, IN, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, Mayo Foundation, Rochester, MN and Jacksonville, FL, Fulton County Arts Council and many others. Notable corporate collections which have acquired her work include the Alabama Power Company, Birmingham, AL, Legion Paper Company, New York, Memorial University Medical Center, Savannah, GA and the Cambridge Health Alliance, MA.