Jean Esme Oregon Cooke RA was an English painter of still lifes, landscapes, portraits and figures.
29 Facts About Jean Cooke
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Jean Cooke was a lecturer at the Royal Academy and regularly exhibited her works, including the summer Royal Academy exhibitions.
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Jean Cooke was commissioned to make portraits by Lincoln College and St Hilda's College, Oxford.
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Jean Cooke's works are in the National Gallery, Tate and the Royal Academy collections.
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Jean Esme Oregon Cooke was born on 18 February 1927 in South London to Arthur Oregon Cooke and his wife.
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Jean Cooke's mother saw little value in education and kept her out of school until then.
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Jean Cooke began her art studies in 1943 at the Central School of Arts and Crafts.
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Jean Cooke studied life drawing under Bernard Meninsky, textile design, and illustration at the Central School until 1945.
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Jean Cooke then studied sculpture at Goldsmiths College and pottery at Camberwell College of Arts.
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John Bratby, a Royal College of Art painter, and Jean Cooke began a tempestuous dating relationship.
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Jean Cooke developed a following, including Bethel Solomons and Brinsley Ford who collected her regularly exhibited works.
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Jean Cooke often painted over or "slashed" her works and restricted her painting time to three morning hours.
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Jean Cooke was said, though, to have had an "enlivening, inspiring effect" on her artistically.
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Jean Cooke was commissioned by St Hilda's College, Oxford to paint its principal, Mary Bennett and was hired by Lincoln College to make portraits of Walter Oakeshott and Egon Wellesz.
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Jean Cooke's work has been compared to Gwen John and Paula Modersohn-Becker.
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Jean Cooke made several self-portraits, like Blast Bodicea, Jamais je ne pleure et jamais je ne ris, and Self-Portrait.
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Bratby and Jean Cooke's relationship experienced cycles of violence throughout their marriage.
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Jean Cooke left their home in fear, but would return based on the advice of their mentor and family friend, Carel Weight.
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Jean Cooke began signing her works with her maiden name at Bratby's insistence.
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Jean Cooke's works are at the National Gallery, Tate and the Royal Academy.
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Jean Cooke moved into a Charlton Village flat and continued her painting there.
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Jean Cooke died on 6 August 2008 at her second cottage at Birling Gap while looking at the sea out of her window.
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Jean Cooke was a painter of wit and subtlety, a lovely and unusual colourist who painted landscape and still-life with great but understated feeling.
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Jean Cooke was a figure painter, and a dab hand at portraits, but her finest achievement was in the depiction of the natural world: cliffs and the sea, a mountain meadow, the effects of mist or moonlight, a collection of fruit or flowers.
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Jean Cooke became a Full Royal Academician in 1972, and for many years her work has appeared annually in the Royal Academy's Summer Exhibition.
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Jean Cooke was on the Council of the Royal Academy in 1983 to 1985,1992 to 94, and 2001 to 2002.
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From 1984 to 1986, Jean Cooke was governor of the Central School of Art and Design.
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Jean Cooke sat on the academic board of the Blackheath School of Art from 1986 to 1988.
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Jean Cooke was a member of the Friends of Woodlands Art Gallery.