Cook was a student in architecture at Princeton Unversity, Princeton, New Jersey. He then pursued his art study at the Academy's school from 1937 into 1939, and at the Art Students League. He has credited John Folinsbee, whose daughter he married, as his most influential teacher. Among his honors are a Pulitzer Traveling Scholarship, 1939 and awards from the New Jersey Painters and Sculptors Society, the Century Association, New York, the National Arts Club, the Boston Arts Festival, the Maine Art Festival, and the Ogunquit (Maine) Art Center. He received a Hallgarten prize in the Academy annual of 1944. Well known, and widely commissioned, as a painter of formal portraits, Cook also works extensively in other subject matter.
Cook taught life painting in the Academy school for the 1946-47 and 1948-49 seasons, and served a term on the Academy Council, 1983-86.
