Lynette Cook

After growing up in Illinois, Cook attended Mississippi University for Women, receiving a BS­ in biology and a BFA in drawing and painting. After graduating with an MFA from the California College of the Arts in Oakland (drawing, with a specialization in scientific illustration), she became the staff Artist/Photographer for the Morrison Planetarium at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, a position she held for sixteen years. 

Cook also worked with researchers at the forefront of scientific discoveries: most notably, locating planets outside our solar system. This resulted in worldwide publication of Cook’s astronomical images in books, periodicals, documentaries, and press releases by Astronomy, BBC Television, CNN, The Discovery Channel, Japan Public Television, NASA, Newsweek, Scientific American, Time, and US News & World Report (a partial list). Cook also has been featured on ABC7 News (KGO) and in USA Today.

In 2010, Cook shifted direction toward painting, her first love. She now focuses on the urban environment of the San Francisco Bay Area, from historical landmarks to more common “everyday” scenes. Career highlights include solo exhibitions at the Morris Graves Museum of Art in Eureka, CA and the Peninsula Museum of Art in Burlingame, CA (2020). In 2020 and 2023 the de Young Museum included her paintings in its de Young Open exhibits in San Francisco. Cook won the Grand Prize in Lifting the Sky, the 2021 national exhibition of American Women Artists, which came with a $10,000 cash award. 2022 brought Cook the Best in Show in the Acrylic International Biennial Juried Exhibition at the Kenosha Public Museum in Kenosha, WI. Cook is a regular award recipient in National Oil and Acrylic Painters’ Society exhibitions, most recently winning Best Realism in the Best of America Small Works Exhibition 2024 in Santa Fe, NM.

Cook is a 2016 grant recipient of the Pollock-Krasner Foundation. Her artwork is in the permanent collections of the City and County of San Francisco and Imagery Estate Winery, the largest single-theme art collection (wine labels) in the world.