Robert D. Cocke

Art Brokerage: Robert D. Cocke Austrian Artist: b. 1950. Cocke was born in 1950 to James and Marjorie Cocke, Americans living in Salzburg, Austria during James's service as a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army. In 1960, the family settled in Tucson, Arizona. He studied art at the University of Arizona (BFA, 1972), before attending the University of Iowa, where he earned an MA in studio art in 1974 and an MFA in 1975. His early influences included René Magritte, Giorgio de Chirico, Imagism, and Bay Area Funk artists Robert Arneson and William T. Wiley. Robert D. Cocke’s paintings have evolved dramatically in both style and subject matter since he began painting in the early 1970s. But underlying all of the changes has been a consistent interest in the landscape, whether it be a pristine natural environment, or a crowded cityscape. In the first phase of Cocke’s mature work, roughly 1979- 1995, the landscape/ cityscape was the setting for expressionistic, figurative “dramas” that often contained a kind of commentary in allegorical guise, based on personal musings or events of the day. In the late 1990s, the figures disappeared, the brushwork became less expressionistic, and the subject became the landscape itself, with its potential for evoking a sense of wonder and transcendence. These landscapes were invented by the artist, but were based upon years of drawing and painting from direct observation of the landscape, in various locales. Gradually the human presence was re-introduced, but with objects placed in the landscape, rather than figures. This addition brought back the possibility of allegorical narrative as a part of the paintings’ content. Recently, in some works, Cocke has returned to the human figure, in response perhaps, to recent events in the sociopolitical sphere. Listings wanted.