Painter and draughtsman, born in Knutsford, Cheshire, to an English father and American mother, the family moving to the United States in 1947. In 1953 Cooke graduated in art history from Harvard University, Boston, attending summer schools in painting at Skowhegan College, Maine; in 1955 went to Salzburg, Germany, studying at Oskar Kokoschaka’s School of Seeing. Moved to the Irish Republic in 1954, settling at Boyle, County Sligo. Cooke liked spontaneity, rarely making preliminary drawings. He was “a Romantic in the real sense, an empathist. The less there is of me in the painting the better. Empathy is when you’ve lost yourself.” His canvases drew on landscapes around the world and interrelated themes such as nude, knot and water. Cooke held many solo shows in Ireland and abroad.