Barbara Latham

Barbara (Cook) Latham - (1896-1989)

Barbara Latham grew up in Norwich, CT. She attended the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, finishing with a Fine Arts degree in 1919. She studied with Andrew Dasburg and Charles Rosen in Woodstock, New York. While living in New York, she designed Christmas cards and did illustrations for the New York Times and Forum magazine. Latham went to Taos to design cards for a New York greeting card company. In 1927 she married Howard Cook, a prominent artist and traveled for a number years before settling down on Talpa Ridge, south of Taos. In 1976, the couple permanently moved to Santa Fe.

Many of her prints and paintings overlooked the valley of Rancho de Taos. Latham also illustrated 20 children’s books. The artists exhibitions include; Brooklyn Museum; Museum of New Mexico; Carnegie Institute; Library of Congress, Washington DC; Denver Art Museum and the Whitney Museum of American Art. She also had a one-person show at the Museum of New Mexico. Her work can be found in the collections of the Met in New York; Newark Museum, New Jersey and the Museum of New Mexico. The unique aspect of her work is that the medium that she used was egg tempera.

Source: An Encyclopedia of Women Artist of the American West by Phil and Marian Kovinick