8.18.2011

MARIANA COOK: Stone Walls

Window and Walls, Machu Picchu, Peru
Photograph (c) Mariana Cook

Terraces. Ollantaytambo, Peru
Photograph (c) Mariana Cook

Limestone Field with Puddle. Inishmaan, Ireland
Photograph (c) Mariana Cook


Stone Walls: Personal Boundaries was conceived by Mariana Cook, the last protégé of Ansel Adams, at her home on Martha’s Vineyard on the day before Thanksgiving in 2002. After 56 cows strayed through a crumbling section of the stone wall she shares with her neighbor, Cook studied the tumbled wall and was struck by its beauty. With that inspiration, Cook spent eight years traveling to farms, towns, and temples in Peru, Great Britain, Ireland, the Mediterranean, New England, and Kentucky in pursuit of dry stone walls.

Work by Mariana Cook is in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Los Angles County Museum and the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles; the Corcoran Gallery of Art and the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C.; and the National Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, among others. Previous books: Fathers and Daughters, Mothers and Sons, Generations of Women, Couples, Faces of Science, and Mathematicians. She lives in New York City with her husband and daughter.

3 comments:

JMW said...

I may have to have this book...I love the photo of Inishmaan. I've been to Inishmoore, so to see some images from one of the other Aran Islands is wonderful. And, having grown up in Kentucky, there are some wonderfully beautiful, old stone walls (like the ocver of that book) surrounding many of the horse farms. They were created by Irish immigrants and have stood the test of time.

Larry the Artist said...

Beautiful cover design.

Caio Fern said...

so beautiful and silent.