Typewriter artist James Cook

For London-based artist James Cook, drawing portraits used to be a struggle. But that all changed when he discovered his now-signature tool: the typewriter.

From his office in London, Cook creates incredible drawings using his collection of more than 40 typewriters, many of which were donated to him by fans of his work.

His artworks range from images of buildings and landscapes to portraits of animals and celebrities, such as Tom Hanks.

He uses a random assortment of letters, numbers and punctuation marks to form his masterpieces.

From small commissions to drawings made of more than 500,000 characters, James has produced close to 300 pieces of work on his growing collection of more than 60 typewriters.

James describes his artwork as "a picture worth a thousand words" and has produced artwork for celebrities, public figures and musicians.

In just over a decade, James has produced more than 350 typewritten drawings.

To produce his stunning artwork, James has acquired more than 100 typewriters which have mostly been generously donated by fans of his work.

Using the typewriters, he has produced artwork for celebrities, television presenters, musicians and famous businesses.

The scale of James Cook’s work ranges from the size of a postcard and the antithesis of this being rolls-upon-rolls of paper.

Larger drawings are constructed in section and hot-pressed together thereby allowing for creations larger than the limitations of a typewriter’s traditional paper-feed.

Concealed in most drawings are hidden type-written messages or words inspired by the backstory of a particular project that the artist is working on.

Typewriter artist James Cook at the work

Per l'artista londinese James Cook, disegnare ritratti era un tempo una vera e propria lotta.

Ma tutto è cambiato quando ha scoperto il suo strumento di lavoro, oggi diventato il suo cavallo di battaglia: la macchina da scrivere.

Dal suo ufficio di Londra, Cook crea disegni incredibili utilizzando la sua collezione di oltre 40 macchine da scrivere, molte delle quali gli sono state donate da fan delle sue opere.

Le sue opere spaziano da immagini di edifici e paesaggi a ritratti di animali e celebrità, come Tom Hanks.

Utilizza un assortimento casuale di lettere, numeri e segni di punteggiatura per creare i suoi capolavori.

Sir John Everett Millais | Ophelia, 1851-1852

The scene depicted is from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Act IV, Scene VII, in which Ophelia, driven out of her mind when her father is murdered by her lover Hamlet, falls into a stream and drowns:

There, on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds

Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke;

When down her weedy trophies and herself

Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide,

And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up;

Sir John Everett Millais | Ophelia, 1851-1852 | Tate Britain, London

John George Todd | Genre painter

Henry George Todd (1847-1898) was an English artist active in Suffolk.

Henry was the son of George Todd (1820-1904), a painter and decorator and grainer to whom he became apprenticed.

In 1865 he attended art school and later progressed onto the Royal College of Art.

After a period working in his father's decoration and gilding business in Bury St Edmund's when both Henry and his father George exhibited their works in the Todd's St Andrew's Street North shop.

Louis Wain | Postcard artist

Louis William Wain (1860-1939) was an English artist best known for his drawings of anthropomorphised cats and kittens.

Wain was born in Clerkenwell, London.

In 1881 he sold his first drawing and the following year gave up his teaching position at the West London School of Art to become a full-time illustrator.

He married in 1884 but was widowed three years later.

In 1890 he moved to the Kent coast with his mother and five sisters, and, except for three years spent in New York, remained there until the family returned to London in 1917.

Charles Dickens | Mr. Pickwick's Christmas

The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (also known as The Pickwick Papers, 1836) is the first novel by English author Charles Dickens.

The book became a publishing phenomenon, with bootleg copies, theatrical performances, Sam Weller joke books, and other merchandise.

The Pickwick Papers was published in 19 issues over 20 months, and it popularised serialised fiction and cliffhanger endings.

Charles Dickens | The Pickwick Papers, 1836

Chapter 28

And numerous indeed are the hearts to which Christmas brings a brief season of happiness and enjoyment.

How many families, whose members have been dispersed and scattered far and wide, in the restless struggles of life, are then reunited, and meet once again in that happy state of companionship and mutual goodwill, which is a source of such pure and unalloyed delight; and one so incompatible with the cares and sorrows of the world, that the religious belief of the most civilised nations, and the rude traditions of the roughest savages, alike number it among the first joys of a future condition of existence, provided for the blessed and happy!

How many old recollections, and how many dormant sympathies, does Christmas time awaken!

Charles Dickens illustrated by Roberto Innocenti (Italian, 1940)

Sarah Jarrett | Pop Surrealism painter

Sarah Jarrett is a collage artist and illustrator based in Norfolk, UK.

She is fascinated and inspired by the human relationship with nature and the natural world.

She loves plants, flowers, and color.

Jarrett's ladies are frequently surrounded by flowers, birds and branches, which gives them a lovely surrealistic impression.

William Shakespeare | All the world's a stage / Tutto il mondo è un palcoscenico

"All the world's a stage" is the phrase that begins a monologue from William Shakespeare's pastoral comedy As You Like It (believed to have been written in 1599 and first published in the First Folio in 1623), spoken by the melancholy Jaques in Act II Scene VII Line 139.

The speech compares the world to a stage and life to a play and catalogues the seven stages of a man's life, sometimes referred to as the Seven Ages of Man.

Nicola d'Ascenzo (1871-1954) | Seven Ages of Man, stained glass

Located at the west end of the Old Reading Room, the "Seven Ages of Man" window is by the Philadelphia stained-glass studio of Nicola d'Ascenzo.

Modeled after the stone tracery of the apse window of Stratford's Holy Trinity Church, he stained glass within the stonework depicts the "Seven Ages of Man" that Jaques describes in "As You Like It".

Ethel Léontine Gabain (1883-1950)

Ethel Léontine Gabain, later Ethel Copley, was a French-Scottish artist.

Gabain was a renowned painter and lithographer and among the founding members of the Senefelder Club.

While she was known for her oil portraits of actresses, Gabain was one of the few artists of her time able to live on the sale of her lithographs.

She also did etchings, dry-points, as well as some posters.

Fred Appleyard (1874-1963)

Fred Appleyard was a British artist known for his landscape paintings, portraits, classical subjects and allegorical compositions.

He had 41 works exhibited during his lifetime by the Royal Academy and painted the mural Spring Driving Out Winter in the Academy Restaurant.

Appleyard was born in Middlesbrough, England on 9 September 1874, the son of Isaac Appleyard, an iron merchant. His uncle was the sculptor John Wormald Appleyard.

5 Important artworks at the Tate Gallery

Tate is a family of art galleries in London, Liverpool and Cornwall, known as Tate Modern, Tate Britain, Tate St Ives and Tate Liverpool + RIBA North.

When Tate first opened its doors to the public in 1897 it had just one site, displaying a small collection of British artworks.

Today we have four major sites and the national collection of British art from 1500 to the present day and international modern and contemporary art, which includes nearly 70,000 artworks.

Henri Matisse | Reading Woman with Parasol, 1921 | Tate

Matisse painted this work while renting a house near Nice in the South of France.

The relaxed, relatively naturalistic style is typical of his work of the early 1920s.

It was bought by the Contemporary Art Society in 1926 with the intention of presenting it to the Tate Gallery.

Matisse wrote that the painting ‘will represent me as well as possible - moreover, I think that it will not frighten the acquisitions committee of the Modern Museum in London'.

In fact, the Tate initially turned it down, but accepted it in 1938.| Source: © Tate

Henri Matisse (French, 1869-1954) | Reading Woman with Parasol, 1921 | Tate Collection

John Henry Henshall | Victorian watercolour painter

John Henry Henshall, usually known as Henry Henshall RWS (1856-1928) was a British watercolourist and etcher.

A favourite theme of Henshall's work is the contrast between the happy innocence of childhood, without cares, and the tribulations of old age.

He was not afraid to tackle uncomfortable subjects and his honest, realistic pictures of ordinary life were quite unusual for painters in the Victorian era.

William Shakespeare | To be, or not to be / Essere o non essere

To be, or not to be, opening line of a monologue spoken by the character Hamlet in Act III, scene 1, of William Shakespeare’s revenge tragedy Hamlet (1599-1601). Often referred to as a soliloquy, the speech technically does not meet that term’s strictest definition - that is, a monologue delivered by an actor alone onstage - because Ophelia, the object of Hamlet’s fickle affections, is also present, though Hamlet does not speak directly to her until the speech’s very end.

The scene in which "To be, or not to be" appears is sometimes referred to as "the nunnery scene", because Hamlet spurns Ophelia by telling her to "get thee to a nunnery" rather than wed him or another.

William Shakespeare | To be, or not to be

John Everett Millais | Ophelia (1852) depicts Lady Ophelia's mysterious death by drowning. In the play, the gravediggers discuss whether Ophelia's death was a suicide and whether she merits a Christian burial.

To be, or not to be, that is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles

And by opposing end them. To die - to sleep,

No more; and by a sleep to say we end

The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to: 'tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;

To sleep, perchance to dream - ay, there's the rub:

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause - there's the respect

That makes calamity of so long life.

Sir Thomas Lawrence | John Philip Kemble as Hamlet, 1801 | Tate Britain

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

Th'oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,

The pangs of dispriz'd love, the law's delay,

The insolence of office, and the spurns

That patient merit of th'unworthy takes,

When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscovere'd country, from whose bourn

No traveller returns, puzzles the will,

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all,

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,

And enterprises of great pith and moment

With this regard their currents turn awry

And lose the name of action.

Edwin Austin Abbey | The Play Scene in "Hamlet" (Act III, Scene II), 1897 | Yale University Art Gallery

William Shakespeare | Essere o non essere

Essere, o non essere, questo è il dilemma:

se sia più nobile nella mente soffrire

colpi di fionda e dardi d'oltraggiosa fortuna

o prender armi contro un mare d'affanni

e, opponendosi, por loro fine? Morire, dormire…

nient'altro, e con un sonno dire che poniamo fine

al dolore del cuore e ai mille tumulti naturali

di cui è erede la carne: è una conclusione

da desiderarsi devotamente. Morire, dormire.

Benjamin West | Hamlet: Act IV, Scene V (Ophelia Before the King and Queen), 1792 | Cincinnati Art Museum

Dormire, forse sognare. Sì, qui è l'ostacolo,

perché in quel sonno di morte quali sogni possano venire

dopo che ci siamo cavati di dosso questo groviglio mortale

deve farci riflettere. È questo lo scrupolo

che dà alla sventura una vita così lunga.

Perché chi sopporterebbe le frustate e gli scherni del tempo,

il torto dell'oppressore, l'ingiuria dell'uomo superbo,

gli spasimi dell'amore disprezzato, il ritardo della legge,

l'insolenza delle cariche ufficiali, e il disprezzo

che il merito paziente riceve dagli indegni,

quando egli stesso potrebbe darsi quietanza

con un semplice stiletto? Chi porterebbe fardelli,

grugnendo e sudando sotto il peso di una vita faticosa,

se non fosse che il terrore di qualcosa dopo la morte,

il paese inesplorato dalla cui frontiera

nessun viaggiatore fa ritorno, sconcerta la volontà

e ci fa sopportare i mali che abbiamo

piuttosto che accorrere verso altri che ci sono ignoti?

Eugène Delacroix | Hamlet and Horatio in the Graveyard, 1839 | Museo del Louvre

Così la coscienza ci rende tutti codardi,

e così il colore naturale della risolutezza

è reso malsano dalla pallida cera del pensiero,

e imprese di grande altezza e momento

per questa ragione deviano dal loro corso

e perdono il nome di azione.

Daniel Maclise | The Play Scene in "Hamlet", 1842 | Tate Museum

Charlie Chaplin | Speech to Humanity, 1940

The Great Dictator is a 1940 American political satire, and black comedy film written, directed, produced, scored by, and starring British comedian Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin KBE (1889-1977).

Chaplin spent many months drafting and re-writing the speech for the end of the film, a call for peace from the barber who has been mistaken for Hynkel.

Regrettably Chaplin’s words are as relevant today as they were in 1940.

Derek Boshier | Pop art painter

Biography from the Tate Gallery

British painter, sculptor, photographer and printmaker Derek Boshier ((1937-2024)) studied painting and lithography at Yeovil School of Art in Somerset (1953-7), Guildford College of Art (1957-9) and the Royal College of Art, London (1959-62), where he was one of the students associated with Pop art.

Boshier juxtaposed contrasting styles within his paintings, but he favoured topical subject-matter such as the space race, political events and the Americanisation of Europe.

Sidney Meteyard | Pre-Raphaelite painter

Sidney Harold Meteyard RBSA (1868-1947) was an English art teacher, painter and stained-glass designer.

A member of the Birmingham Group, he worked in a late Pre-Raphaelite style heavily influenced by Edward Burne-Jones and the Arts and Crafts Movement.

Meteyard was born in Stourbridge, his father was Oswald George Meatyard (d. 4 May 1906) and mother Emma Maria Meatyard, née Rutland (1838-1925).

He studied under Edward R. Taylor at the Birmingham School of Art, where he was to later teach for 45 years himself from 1886.

Edward Reginald Frampton | Pre-Raphaelite painter

British painter Edward Reginald Frampton (1870-1923) was known for working in the Pre-Raphaelite style.

Mr. Frampton was specialized in murals, specifically war memorials at churches.

Mr. Frampton considered himself to have been influenced both by primitive Italian painting and the British Pre-Raphaelite design and also by the compositions of Pierre Puvis de Chavannes.

Carlotta Edwards | Ballet dancers

Carlotta Edwards (1894-1977) was the daughter of the French painter Ferdinand Pourrier. She is well know for her paintings of ballet scenes and exhibited at both the Royal Society of Portrait Painters and the Paris Salon.

The Medici Society published many pints of her work and these are still widely available.

In the 1950's framed copies of Carlotta Edward's prints were very popular.

Charlie Chaplin | Live! / Vivi !

Ho perdonato errori quasi imperdonabili,

ho provato a sostituire persone insostituibili

e dimenticato persone indimenticabili.

Ho agito per impulso,

sono stato deluso dalle persone

che non pensavo lo potessero fare,

ma anch’io ho deluso.

Alice Havers | Genre painter

Alice Mary Celestine Havers, married name Alice Mary Morgan (1850-1890), was an British painter and illustrator.

Life

Alice Mary Havers was the third daughter and youngest of four children born 19 May 1850 to Thomas Havers (1810-1870) of Thelton Hall, Thelveton, Norfolk, the family seat, and his first wife Ellen Ruding (1817-1854).

Joe Webb, 1976 | Mixed media painter

Joe Webb is a British visual artist, known for his enticing handmade mixed media collages.

He uses images from vintage magazines and posters to conjure surreal narratives that express both a comical and cynical take on the modern world.

Webb’s Handmade Collages

Webb worked as a commercial artist and graphic designer for several years. Tired of modern technology and its overwhelming potentials, Joe turned to collage, a technique he described as "more immediate and graphic than painting".

Webb’s elegant handmade collages are made of vintage magazines and printed ephemera that he has collected during the years.