Biography

Allison B. Cooke was born in Midwest City, Oklahoma. She spent most of her childhood living on the east coast before moving to Wisconsin in 1970. Allison holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Art Education from the University of Wisconsin – Madison and a Master of Fine Arts Degree in Drawing and Painting from the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee.

Throughout her teaching career, Allison has taught a myriad of drawing and painting studio courses at the Milwaukee Art Museum, the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design and, since 2000, full time in the Department of Art and Design housed in the Peck School of the Arts at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Allison is also the Director/Faculty for a summer study abroad program at Santa Reparata International School of Art in Florence, Italy. For the last six years she has been researching, developing and teaching an intensive four-week summer course in Renaissance Painting techniques focusing on egg tempera and gilding found in both traditional and contemporary
studio practice.

Allison’s passion for the vestiges of aged surfaces that inspires her painting has been influenced by her travel in Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Mexico, Russia, and Sweden. Her works are created primarily in oil/mixed media, egg tempera and watercolor. Allison has an extensive national exhibition record spanning three decades and is in
permanent art collections in Japan and India.