David Cook, a native of Houston, Texas, traveled extensively throughout the world. But it was working with director Piero Tellini in Italy that determined the trajectory of his life and ultimately brought him to Denver.
In 1978, when David was living in Egypt, Piero asked David to join him to film a documentary on the Hopi Indians. Initially, they spent six weeks with the Hopi to research and shoot for their initial pitch. For reference material, David purchased the full 20-volume portfolio by Edward Sheriff Curtis: The North American Indian. Although the documentary never came to fruition, the research and work he did on it propelled David into his now lifelong appreciation and love for Native American art and material culture.
David landed in Colorado as the Denver Art Museum became the first fine art museum in the United States to dedicate a sizable portion of their space to display Native American material as fine art. It took over a century for any other major fine art museum in this country to dedicate anything equal in magnitude.
At the Denver Art Museum, the curator of the Native Arts department, Richard Conn, mentored David, along with Jo Ben Wheat, the curator at the University of Colorado Museum and Native textile expert. Since at this time Native art wasn’t offered in many schools, people instead learned from peers, mentors and books.
“After 43 years, his extensive knowledge is entirely from ‘on the job’ training. His love for the material has never waned,” says Linda Cook, David’s wife and partner in running David Cook Galleries in Denver, a show space that focuses on both historic Indigenous art and 19th to 21st century regional fine art.
David opened the American Indian Art Gallery in the late ‘70s and was a founding member of the Antique Tribal Art Dealers Association, an international group made up of tribal art dealers, museums and collectors that emphasizes ethics and responsible collecting practices. This is especially important as early Native American material is difficult to identify, lacking typical labels such as artist signatures and dates. Plus, it requires specialized knowledge to authenticate. David garnered this hard-earned knowledge, which is why he is asked to do appraisals and consultations for museums, as well as for private and public collections.
By the early ‘90s, the Cooks realized that Colorado had a plentiful history of extraordinary painters and sculptures that were either underappreciated or fading into obscurity. To include the historic Colorado and Rocky Mountain artists in the gallery was a natural extension of what David and Linda already represented.
In the beginning, it was difficult to source the artwork. But now, David Cook Galleries represents over 200 known artists – and even more with unnamed artists, as the early Native American artists were anonymous. These artists are now well known to local and national audiences and can be found in many important private and public collections.
“We feel honored to be their representatives,” Linda says. “Even though these artists are gone, their art is essential and tells the story of our history in a unique way.” Colorado’s earliest artists were “historians,” Linda adds, who documented the landscape of the Rocky Mountains and the people who were living in this region. This continued as the art industry, and its demographics, changed.
Many of the Colorado artists that David Cook Gallery represents, not necessarily intentionally, are women.
“They had power here in the west that they did not have elsewhere,” Linda says of female artists who traveled to Colorado as early as the 1800s. “They could own things, like land, cattle and businesses.”
Women deciding to travel West did not necessarily do so because of the status quo. Colorado was the second state, after Wyoming, that women gained the right to vote in. And over half of the 52 founding members of the Denver Artists’ Guild, which started in 1928, were women. Rather, the decision took guts, courage and iron will, Linda says.
“They were a force to be reckoned with,” Linda adds. Although Colorado historically has a strong women-based art community, these were not the first women artists of the West. Though Native American men did their own ceremonial art, Linda points to Native American women as the ones primarily weaving, creating pottery, basketry and beadwork. Their work, she says, rivals the past centuries’ great artists and is still considered exemplary.
When asked why they don’t represent living artists, Linda says, “There are so many great galleries that are doing that, but we feel somehow compelled to nurture the legacy of these artists who can no longer represent themselves.”
“It’s such an extraordinary thing to be able to share art with people and see how the art shifts them,” Linda adds. “It’s color, it’s design, it’s patterns. It’s a sanctuary. You can see how it changes their demeanor.”