Cooke Family

Cooke Family

Family of English engravers and artists. Of German ancestry, the brothers William Bernard (1779–1855) and George (1781–1834), were apprenticed to engravers in the late eighteenth century, when English engraving was undergoing stylistic and technical development along with British landscape painting and illustration. William Bernard was also an entrepreneur, who operated a print shop and gallery in Soho Square, London (ca. 1821–30). The gallery exhibited English engraving and watercolor, using items not only from the Cooke shop but also on loan from collectors. George, also drawing on the assistance of the brothersʼ studio, was extensively occupied by an aquatint project in botanical illustration, The Botanical Cabinet (1817–33). A son of George became the marine painter, Edward William Cooke (1811–80); and a cousin of Edward, William John Cooke, became an engraver in steel, who contributed advancements in etching that medium (Munday, Edward William Cooke, 27, 32–33, 37–38).
The elder brothers oversaw an ambitious number of projects in their shop (Munday, Edward William Cooke, 34, 39–42), but their most important joint project was Picturesque Views of the Southern Coast of England (1814–26), based chiefly on drawings by J. M. W. Turner. Although the project was beset by delays, in the course of it Turner learned to treat engraving as an expressive medium in which he could play a collaborative role. W. B. Cooke was also instrumental in furthering Turnerʼs contributions to steel engraving, by employing the mezzotint engraver, Thomas Goff Lupton (1791–1873), with whom Turner had already collaborated, and who was making successful breakthroughs in the practical use of that stubborn but durable medium. For these first Turner engravings on steel, Cooke commissioned the series, The Rivers of England (1823–27). This series was the occasion of the first serious falling‐out between Turner and the Cooke brothers, over the question of whether Turner would “touch” (make improvements to) plates based on drawings by another artist, Thomas Girtin (1775–1802) (see Shanes, Turnerʼs Rivers, Harbours and Coasts, 5–12).