Paul Rodda Cook, 1897-1972, a muralist, and painter of portraits, landscapes and still-lifes, was born in Salinas, Kansas. His family moved to Uvalde, Texas when he was 7 years old. It took some time for Cook to realize that he wanted to be an artist. He first studied law at the University of Texas, Austin, leaving school for Massachusetts, where he took a job, obviously marking time, in sales for a tanning company. He was saved by an illness that sent him back to San Antonio, where he began his art studies with Hugo David Pohl, then to Taos, New Mexico, with well-known artists Walter Ufer and Leon Gaspard. When Cook began his art studies, he did so with a fixity of purpose, continuing in Boston with Herman...