Olive Muriel Cook
(1912-2002), ArtistArtist of 1 portrait
Olive Cook read Modern Languages at Cambridge in 1931. She married Edwin Smith in 1954. Together they wrote and illustrated articles in Leonard Russell's annual Saturday Book from 1944 to the 1960s, as well as English Parish Churches (1950), an influential series with texts by Olive Cook, followed by English Cottages and Farmhouses (1954), English Abbeys and Priories (1961) and The Wonders of Italy (1963), and they contributed to the growing awareness of changes affecting local tradition, rural skills and crafts in the preservation movement. Her own books include Suffolk (1948) in the Vision of England series, Cambridgeshire: Aspects of a County (1953) and Breckland (1956). She was a self-taught painter.
by Olive Muriel Cook
oil on board, circa 1954
NPG 6657
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