NOEL COOK (1896 - 1981)

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Noel Cook was a famous New Zealand maori artist and comic illustrator. After working for the NZ Herald & Weekly News, he moved to Australia in the early 1920s to work at The Bulletin, Smith’s Weekly & Sunday Times.  Noel "also indulged in the higher aesthetics of water colour and oil painting", producing 150 Cartoon books, and also held a position with Australian Women's Weekly and Sydney Sunday & Daily Telegraph. He is credited as one of the first sci-fi comic artists. After serving in WWII, he moved to London to work as a freelancing illustrator in Fleet Street for a while, then gained a job as Art Editor with Amalgamated Press where he created strip cartoons on top of other freelance illustration. He held several solo exhibitions in New Zealand, Australia & England.