Cooke, Pat

Pat Cooke (1935-2000) was a British painter and illustrator born in Cheshire. Mentored from childhood by L. S. Lowry, she developed a distinctive style focused on everyday life and working-class scenes. After studying at Manchester College of Art and the Slade School of Fine Art, she taught for several years before becoming a full-time artist in 1965. Cooke exhibited widely, wrote several books, and became known as one of the commercially successful female artists of post-war Britain. She died in 2000, leaving a legacy closely associated with the tradition of Northern social realism.