Wind in the Elms, Howard Norton Cook

Artwork Overview

Howard Norton Cook, Wind in the Elms
Howard Norton Cook, Wind in the Elms
Howard Norton Cook
Wind in the Elms
1926
Howard Norton Cook
1901–1980
Wind in the Elms, 1926
Where object was made: United States
Material/technique: woodcut; Japanese paper
Dimensions:
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 354 x 300 mm
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 13 15/16 x 11 13/16 in
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 455 x 339 mm
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 17 15/16 x 13 3/8 in
Mat Dimensions (Height x Width): 25 x 20 in
Credit line: Gift of Hal M. Davison, Class of 1949
Accession number: 1998.0274
Not on display
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Exhibition Label: "Trees & Other Ramifications: Branches in Nature & Culture," Mar-2009, Steve Goddard The shade trees in Wind in the Elms were recorded by Cook only a few years before Dutch Elm Disease began to sweep the country, decimating the American Elm (Ulmus Americana). The American Elm lined the streets of many towns and served as the ideal shade tree. Its rapid disappearance from the American cultural and geographical landscape is deeply etched in the collective memory of the nation. Donald C. Peattie, author of A Natural History of Trees, noted “The very way that the leaves hang accounts for the special quality of the Elm shade. A big old specimen will have about a million leaves, or an acre of leaf surface, and will cast a pool of shadow 100 feet in diameter.”