A signature reading "F. S. Cooke" appears at lower right on the cover of The Etude Music Magazine for December 1927, integrated into the snowdrift below the illustration titled "A Christmas Eve Dilemma". At high magnification the letterforms admit two readings, Coke and Cooke; the second is the form used consistently in the trade, and a cover for a 1932 issue of the same magazine has been reported under the same name, though that report is not yet verified against the object. Nothing further is documented. No illustrator of either name appears in the standard reference literature on American commercial illustration, and the December 1927 issue carries no interior credit for its cover art. Nationality, dates, training and the extent of the body of work are all unrecorded. One caution attaches to this record. James Francis Cooke edited The Etude from 1907 to 1950 and served as president of the Theodore Presser Company from 1925 to 1936; his son is recorded as Francis Sherman Cooke. Neither has been documentarily connected to this signature, and The Record Institute does not treat the resemblance of names as evidence. This record exists to anchor the signature, not to assert an identity.
Nationality: Undocumented
Active period: 1927