Home Dealers Calendar Articles Fine Art Database About AFA Login/Register
Home | Fine Art Database | Paul Rodda Cook | Biography
Paul Rodda Cook

Paul Rodda Cook, a muralist, and painter of portraits, landscapes and still-life, was born in Salinas, Kansas. His family moved to Uvalde, Texas when he was 7 years old. It took some time for Cook to realize that he wanted to be an artist. He first studied law at the University of Texas, Austin, leaving school for Massachusetts, where he took a job, obviously marking time, in sales for a tanning company. He was saved by an illness that sent him back to San Antonio, where he began his art studies with Hugo David Pohl, then to Taos, New Mexico, with well-known artists Walter Ufer and Leon Gaspard. When Cook began his art studies, he did so with fixity of purpose, continuing in Boston with Hermann Dudley Murphy, and in Woodstock, New York, with Charles Rosen, Lowell Birge Harrison, and Henry Lee McFee.

Cook moved to Boerne, Texas, near San Antonio, from 1928 until the early 1940s, then to Taxco de Alarcon, Mexico. From 1949-1971, he lived in Houston, and then moved to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Cook died in a Mexico City hospital, and was brought back to the United States for burial in Houston.

Memberships:
San Antonio Art League, Southern States Art League, Villita Street Gallery, San Antonio, American Artists Professional League and New York Watercolor Society.
Exhibitions:
Texas Artists Exhibition, San Antonio Art League (1926);
Annual Texas Artists Exhibition, Fort Worth (1927-28, 1930, 1933, 1936-37);
Edgar B. Davis Competition, San Antonio (1927-28, 1929 honorable mention);
Annual Texas Cotton Palace Exposition, Waco (1929 prize,1930);
Lockhart State Fair (1929 prize);
Annual Exhibition of the State Fair of Texas, Dallas (1929, 1939);
San Angelo (1929 prize);
Southern States Art League Annual Exhibition (1929, 1938, and 1940);
San Pedro Playhouse, San Antonio (1931 one-man);
Witte Memorial Museum, San Antonio (1935 one-man, 1950);
San Antonio Local Artists Annual Exhibition (1935, 1937-38, 1940, 1948);
Bright Shawl Gallery, San Antonio (1936 one-man);
Texas Centennial Exposition, Dallas (1936);
National Exhibition of American Art, Rockefeller Center, New York (1936-38);
Texas Fine Arts Association Exhibition (1936, 1938); Annual Southeast Texas Artists Exhibition, Houston (1937 honorable mention, 1939);
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (1937 with Caroline Durieux and Boyer Gonzales, Jr.);
Texas General Exhibition, (1940 special mention);
Texas-Oklahoma General Exhibition (1941);
San Antonio Art League (1947);
River Art Group, San Antonio (1948);
Texas Seen/Texas Made, San Antonio Museum of Art (1986);
Special Christmas Exhibition, Witte Museum, San Antonio (1989);
Hock Shop Collection: Rediscovering Texas Artists of the Past, Center for the Visual Arts, Denton (1998).
Museums:
South Texas Institute for the Arts, Corpus Christi; Stark Museum of Art, Orange; Groos National Bank, and Witte Museum, San Antonio; San Antonio Art League; Carnegie Library, Waco; and John H. Vanderpoel Art Association, Chicago.

Source:
John and Deborah Powers, Texas Painters, Sculptors, and Graphic Artists

Biography courtesy of Roughton Galleries, www.antiquesandfineart.com/roughton

Artist Profile
Works Available
Copyright ©2024. AntiquesandFineArt.com. All rights reserved.
Antiques and Fine Art is the leading site for antique collectors, designers, and enthusiasts of art and antiques. Featuring outstanding inventory for sale from top antiques & art dealers, educational articles on fine and decorative arts, and a calendar listing upcoming antiques shows and fairs.