Exhibit to showcase Peninsula artist’s works
By Kathleen Folkerth
PENINSULA — She was a printmaker,
a dancer, a designer of theater sets and costumes and
an art teacher. There wasn’t much that Honoré
Guilbeau Cooke didn’t do with her life in her
99 years, those who know her say.
“She was a very, very independent woman,” said Joe Kisvardai, of Medina, who along with his wife, Elaine, knew Cooke for about 15 years.
The couple are helping to organize an exhibit of around 50 of Cooke’s artistic works that will be on display in the gallery at the Peninsula Art Academy beginning May 19 until the end of June.
Cooke was 99 when she died May 23, 2006, the result of a fall while hiking at Deep Lock Quarry Metro Park in Peninsula. She had lived in the village since 1939.
Until her death, she was an active member of the Peninsula community. Kisvardai said he was always amazed at the amount of energy Cooke had.
“When she was 98, we were over there for lunch one day and she said she had eight people coming over for dinner,” he said. “She was a very hard worker. She’d had her knee replaced and months later she was on the big John Deere riding mower tooling around her yard.”
Cooke was foremost an artist.
She had trained as a printmaker at the School of the
Art Institute of Chicago, where she won the Logan Prize
for Lithography in 1932.
Later in the 1930s, she won prizes in the Cleveland
Museum of Art ‘s
annual May Show, and her work was included in a show
in 1937 at the Whitney Museum in New York.
Cooke married Edmund Vance Cooke
and moved with him to a farm in Peninsula in 1939. Because
the limited water supply made printmaking difficult,
she turned to other forms of creative expression and
began working in watercolor,
clay, fiber and drawing.
Locally, her work has been seen
by many at the Peninsula Library, for which she designed
the pebble mosaic that graces the front of the building.
“Mural of Transportation in the Valley”
was installed in 1964.
Carolyn Birchenall, a Bath resident
who is the art academy’s gallery director, said
a variety of pieces created by Cooke are being gathered
for the show.
“People are collecting
things from all over,” Birchenall said. “We
have four pieces that we were lucky enough to have on
display. They were pieces
she had at her home. And her son was in town and he
brought a whole truckload of things from his home. We’re
trying to get the best of what she did.”
Birchenall said Cooke was a volunteer
at the art academy and even helped paint walls when
the center was getting ready to open two years ago.
In 1945, Cooke got involved in
book illustration. She won a Heritage Press competition
to illustrate “The Adventures of Hajji Baba,”
and the company then commissioned her to illustrate
more books. In the 1960s,
she provided the illustrations for Cleveland author
Ethel Collier in the books “Hundreds and Hundreds
of Strawberries,” “Who Goes There in My
Garden?” “The Birthday Tree” and “I
Know a Farm.” She wrote and illustrated her own
book in 1971, “Mrs. Magpie’s Invention.”
“She did very whimsical
things for children,” Kisvardai said.
In addition to her visual art,
Cooke also was involved in dance and theater. She helped
organize the Peninsula Players in the 1940s and designed
sets and costumes for the
Cleveland Theatre for Youth and Cain Park productions.
She also shared her love of art
with young people as a teacher. She and choreographer
Eleanora Buchla Kubinyi turned the Cookes’ barn
into an art school for children in the 1940s, and she
also taught at the Akron Art Institute in the 1950s.
Two receptions will be held to
open the exhibit of Cooke’s work. They will take
place May 19 from 5 to 8 p.m. and May 20 from 2 to 5
p.m. at the Peninsula Art Academy, 1600 W. Mill St.
Kisvardai said members of Cooke’s family,
including her children, Jeremy and Jennifer, are expected
to be on hand for the receptions.
While organizers expect many
who knew Cooke to come out to the show, they believe
others will be impressed by what they see as well. Birchenall
said Cooke’s willingness to try new mediums is
noteworthy.
“Just because you have
one style you’ve done, you should still try new
things and push yourself,” Birchenall said. “She
showed that it’s wonderful to keep learning.”
For more information on the exhibit,
call the Peninsula Art
Academy at (330) 657-2248 or go to www.peninsula
artacademy.com.
|
