Paul Rodda Cook (1897-1972)

Paul Rodda Cook was born in Salina, Kansas in 1897, but as a child moved with his family to Texas where he spent the majority of his artistic career. After first pursuing law studies at the University of Texas and working briefly for a tanning company in Massachusetts, Cook returned home to San Antonio and soon discovered his passion for art. There he took up the brush under the tutelage of Hugo David Pohl and later went to Taos, New Mexico, continuing his training with Walter Ufer and Leon Gaspard. He rounded out his education with travels north, spending time with the artists of the Woodstock, New York art colony and with Hermann Dudley Murphy in Boston.  

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Cook was a member of the Southern States Art League, the San Antonio Art League and the American Artists Professional League, among other associations, and was awarded numerous exhibition prizes during his career. His paintings can be found in several museum collections, including the San Antonio Museum of Art, the Stark Museum of Art in Orange, Texas, and the Witte Museum of Art in San Antonio.  

References: Falk, Who Was Who in American Art, 1999; Powers, John E. and Powers, Deborah D., Texas Painters, Sculptors and Graphic Artists: A Biographical Dictionary of Artists in Texas Before 1942 (Austin, TX: Woodmont Books, 2000); Dawdy, Doris Ostrander, Artists of the American West: A Biographical Dictionary, Vol. II (Chicago, IL: Swallow Press, 1981).