Mildred Lucile Crooks


Mildred Lucile Crooks was an American abstract expressionist painter. She studied in Paris, France and exhibited at many group and solo shows including at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Salon des Tuileries, Salon d'Automne, the Brooklyn Museum, Arts Club Washington D.C. and at many galleries in New York City.

Personal life

Crooks was born in Chicago, Illinois, the daughter of Henry David Crooks. She graduated from Oak Park High School in Chicago, before moving to New York City and Paris. Crooks studied in France, residing with her brother, Harold Crooks. She married Pinckney Gibson Daves on June 21, 1929 at the First Presbyterian Church, New York. The couple lived in the Sutton Place neighborhood, but also frequented the East Hampton area often staying at the Conklin House or at their residence in the Georgica Settlement. In the early 1930s, they were cited as guests at Francophile events in Cincinnati, Ohio. When Crooks died in May 1972, her death was recorded using her married name, Mildred Daves.

Life in France

Crooks studied in Paris for several years, reportedly having studios in Paris and Cannes. Her work was exhibited in the early 1930s at various salons including Salon D'Automne and Salon des Tuileries.
Crooks was the subject of a painting by Ary Stillman, a Russian American artist, who also spent time in Paris. His painting, Portrait of Mrs. Pinckney Daves, was exhibited in late 1931 at the "L'exposition Artistique la Plus Originale de L'Annee" at Salon des Echanges. A featuring the painting is rare glimpse of her likeness.

Critical Reception

A number critics wrote about Crooks's work, including one featured article in The New York Times in 1932, where she is called a "painter's painter." The review of her still-life was deemed to have been "worked out with really fine detail," although the critic worries about her "forays into surrealist territory," a territory she embraced later in her career with her paintings becoming more abstract.
Another reviewer at The New Yorker can't decide if Crooks's nudes were the high-spot of the show, but claims to like them immensely. The art critic C. Adolph Glassgold reviewing her exhibition at the Morton Gallery states that Crooks's work shows "Impeccable color sense.."

Exhibitions

Mildred Crooks had a thirty-five-year-long exhibition record. This list of known exhibitions of Crook's work uses sources from exhibition records, news accounts in The New York Times, the Washington Post, The New Yorker, and The New York Sun, Crooks's biography entry in , as well as entries in various arts magazines such as The Arts and Creative Art.

Exhibitions by year