Timothy Cole (1852 – 17 May 1931) was an American wood engraver.

Timothy Cole
Born1852
Died17 May 1931(1931-05-17) (aged 79)[1]
OccupationWood engraving[2]
ChildrenAlphaeus Philemon Cole
Lessons In Horsemanship by Timothy Cole

Biography

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Timothy Cole was born in 1852 in London, England, his family emigrated to the United States in 1858.

 
Wood engraving of Cole making a wood engraving

He established himself in Chicago,[3] where in the great fire of 1871 he lost everything he possessed. In 1875, he moved to New York City, finding work on the Century (then Scribner's) magazine.[4][5][6] Cole was associated with the magazine for 40 years as a pioneer craftsman of wood engraving.[7]

He immediately attracted attention by his unusual facility and his sympathetic interpretation of illustrations and pictures, and his publishers sent him abroad in 1883 to engrave a set of blocks after the old masters in the European galleries. These achieved for him a brilliant success. His reproductions of Italian, Dutch, Spanish, Flemish and English pictures were published in book form with appreciative notes by the engraver himself.[6] He published his prints in several books: Old Italian Masters (1892), Old Dutch and Flemish Masters (1895), Old English Masters (1902),[8] and Old Spanish Masters (1907).[7]

Though the advent of new mechanical processes had rendered wood engraving almost a lost art and left practically no demand for the work of such craftsmen, Mr Cole was thus enabled to continue his work, and became one of the foremost contemporary masters of wood engraving. He received a medal of the first class at the Paris Exhibition of 1900, and the only grand prize given for wood engraving at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition at St Louis, Missouri, in 1904.[6] In 1906 he was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate Academician, and became a full Academician in 1908.[citation needed]

His son, Alphaeus Philemon Cole, was a noted portraitist who is also today recognized as having been the world's oldest verified living man at the time of his death.[citation needed]

Collections

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Bibliography

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References

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  1. ^ "Timothy Cole Dies", The New York Times, May 18, 1931.
  2. ^ Whittle, George Howes (1918). "The Art of Timothy Cole," The Art World, Vol. 3, No. 5, pp. 377-383.
  3. ^ Cole, Alphaeus Philemon & Margaret Ward Walmsley Cole (1935). Timothy Cole: Wood-engraver. The Pioneer Associates, p. 5.
  4. ^ "Timothy Cole," The Art World, Vol. 1, No. 1, Oct., 1916, p. 13.
  5. ^ Sabine, Julia (1952). "Timothy Cole and the 'Century'," The Library Quarterly, Vol. 22, No. 3, pp. 232-239.
  6. ^ a b c Chisholm 1911.
  7. ^ a b "Timothy Cole". Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2 October 2013.
  8. ^ "Review of Old English Masters by Timothy Cole". The Athenaeum (3923): 23–24. January 3, 1903.
  9. ^ "Timothy Cole". The Art Institute of Chicago. 1852.
  10. ^ "Lesson in Horsemanship (1913) by Timothy Cole". Metropolitan Museum of Art (www.metmuseum.org).
  11. ^ "Timothy Cole | Smithsonian American Art Museum". americanart.si.edu.
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