William Edward James "Jimmy" Cook (1904–1960) was a New Zealand-born Australian artist, curator and art critic.
[1] Cook attended the Canterbury College School of Art from 1919 to 1925 where in 1926 he was awarded the Sawtell Travelling Scholarship[2] using which he studied briefly, touring England, Scotland and Europe,[3] and sharing rooms with William Dobell who remained a close friend.
[1][4] Cook returned to Christchurch in 1927 where until 1933 he taught at his alma mater the Canterbury School of Art alongside Richard Wallwork, Leonard H. Booth, Professor James Shelley, Rata Lovell-Smith, Evelyn Page and Louise Henderson.
Brown notes that he was just one amongst a 'considerable number of talented painters leaving New Zealand in search of artistic fulfilment, in most cases never to return...'[3][7] In 1941 Cook moved to Australia[7] to teach at the East Sydney Technical College (ESTC, later called the National Art School) until 1949, his employment interrupted by his WW2 camouflage work for the Department of the Interior, then from March 1944, he was official war artist for the Australian Comforts Fund, in Papua New Guinea.
Smith in 1976 notes renewed interest in Cook's paintings, particularly those from the war period:[11] His drawings and his ability to visually articulate and describe through the use of the pencil have found few equals.