Christopher Cook
Christopher Cook was born in Yorkshire, England, and studied Literature at Exeter University and MA Painting at the Royal College of Art, London. He received an Italian Government scholarship for three years to work in Bologna, where his colour paintings from this period appeared in high-profile exhibitions such as From Bacon to Now at the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, Eros in Albion at the Casa Masaccio, and solo shows in London.
Two years in India changed his painting approach to a more haptic practice in which sand drawings inspired a switch to monochrome graphite. These works were soon exhibited internationally, especially in the USA through Mary Ryan Gallery, and entered major collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Minneapolis Museum of Art, and Yale Centre for British Art, and in the UK in the British Museum and Fitzwilliam Museum. The ‘graphites’ received major prizes in the UK, including at the prestigious John Moores Liverpool.
Notable solo shows include Yokohama Museum of Art, Japan; Today Art Museum, Beijing; Heidelberger Kunstverein, Germany; and York Art Gallery, UK, in which meditations on Dutch 17th-century still life painting were exhibited alongside masterworks from York’s collection and loans from the National Gallery, London. This theme reemerged during a residency in Taiwan (2023), works from which were exhibited at Chini Gallery, Taipei in 2024. A retrospective of eight exhibitions with Mary Ryan Gallery was held in New York in 2026.
Solo Exhibitions
2026 Mary Ryan Gallery, New York
2024 Chini Gallery, Taipei
2020 Sunny Art Centre London
Saul Hay Gallery Manchester
2019 York Art Gallery
2018 Ryan Lee Gallery New York
Saatchi Gallery London
Shandong University, China
2016 Art First London
2015 Hubner and Hubner, Frankfurt, Germany
2014 Art First London
2013 Ryan Lee Gallery, New York
2011 Langgeng Foundation, Jogjakarta, Indonesia
2010 Mary Ryan Gallery, New York
2009 Fine Art Society, London
2007 Today Art Museum, Beijing
Mary Ryan Gallery, New York
2005 Yokohama Museum of Art, Japan
California State University Long Beach
Group Exhibitions
2026 Contemporary British Painting Prize, Sheffield and London
Another World, Frestonian Gallery, London
2025 John Moores Liverpool, Walker Art Gallery
2024 Paradise Lost The Underground Stream, South Devon, UK
2022 Paper after All, Royal Cambrian Academy Conwy
2020 Recent Acquisitions, York Art Gallery
New Light, Scarborough Art Gallery (and tour)
2019 Sunny Art Prize, London
2018 Layers of Visibility, NiMAC Nicosia
New Light, Tullie House Carlisle
Lynn Painter-Stainers Prize, Mall Galleries, London
2017 New Light, Bowes Museum, Co Durham.
Langgeng Foundation Jogjakarta, Indonesia
2016 Art First London (two person)
2014 John Moores Liverpool
Flow Szechuan Art Academy, Chongqing, China
2013 Graphite GVArt, London
MIMA Middlesbrough
2012 Amalgam, Mary Ryan New York
2011 Dust on the Mirror, ICA Singapore
Drawings for the New Century, Minneapolis Museum of Art, USA
Grey, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
2010 Dust on the Mirror, Djanogly Gallery, Nottingham, UK
2008 Leaded, Salina Art Gallery, Kansas, USA
Tempo Reale, British School at Rome, Italy.
2006 Until it Makes Sense, Gallery Seventeen, London.
Thaddaeus Ropac Gallery, Paris
2005 Yale Centre for British Art USA
Collections
British Museum
Cleveland Museum USA
Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge
Haugesund Billedgalleri, Norway
Metropolitan Museum of Art New York
Minneapolis Museum of Art
MIMA, Middlesbrough
Nicosia Municipal Art Centre, Cyprus
Today Art Museum Beijing
Victoria and Albert Museum
Yale Center for British Art, USA
Yokohama Museum of Art
York Art Gallery
Forbidden Fruit, Graphite Damar Resin on Paper, 72 X 102 cm
Pastoral, Graphite Damar Resin on Paper / Aluminium, 72 X 102 cm
Untitled, Graphite Damar Resin on Paper, 72 X 102 cm
Untitled, Graphite Damar Resin on Paper, 72 X 102 cm
Untitled, Graphite Damar Resin on Paper, 72 X 102 cm
Reconnaissance. Pastoral, Graphite Damar Resin on Paper / Aluminium, 102 x 72 cm
Untitled, Graphite Damar Resin on Paper, 102 x 72 cm
