Merry-Go-Round is an etching created in 1931 by American artist Howard Cook. It is pencil signed, titled, and annotated "imp." This is also dedicated in an unknown hand in the lower left “For Burton”. Merry-Go-Round was printed by the artist in an edition of 50 on cream laid paper that bears a partial watermark. A reference for Merry-Go-Round is Duffy 159 and it is illustrated as plate 24 in Thomas Carven’s A Treasury of American Prints. The platemark measures 9-7/8 x 7-7/8 inches.
This Manège Enfants (merry-go-round) was part of the Bastille Day celebration in Montparnasse. There are around twenty carousels in Paris that are often located near tourist attractions. The 1900s are considered the Golden Age for the manège. The drawing study for Merry-Go-Round is in the Smithsonian American Art Museum (object 1980.18.1) as are two state proofs (1980.18.2 & .18.3).
Howard Norton Cook, painter, printmaker and illustrator, was born in Springfield, Massachusetts in 1901. His studies began at the Art Students' League in New York in 1920 with a $500 scholarship. After traveling for a time throughout Europe, he re-enrolled at the Art Students' League and was introduced to printmaking by Joseph Pennell.
Cook traveled to Santa Fe in 1926 and, within the year, moved to Taos where he quickly became a part of the artistic community. There he met and wed Barbara Latham, printmaker and painter. Cook returned to New York in 1928 and soon became friends with Carl Zigrosser, director of the Weyhe Gallery and foremost authority on prints. With the help of Zigrosser, Cook was able to exhibit his work and, in 1931, he received the first of two Guggenheim Foundation Fellowships. In 1949, he was elected Academician of the National Academy of Design.
Cook became a major American artist with a roster of exhibitions too lengthy to note here but his work is represented in the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas; the Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio; the British Museum, London, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania; the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, California; the Harwood Museum of Art of the University of New Mexico, Taos; the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.
Howard Cook died on 24 June 1980 in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
