Samuel Cocks b. 11 November 1870

Also known as S. Cocks
  • Artist (Painter),
  • Artist (Photographer)
Landscape painter in watercolour and professional photographer based in Kiama, New South Wales active from 1890-1930s. Cocks exhibited with the Society of Artists in 1895 and was winning prizes for his photography by 1896. He became one of the most active recorders of Kiama and surrounding districts. A large archive of negatives and prints survives.
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painter and photographer in NSW. Samuel Cocks was born in Bathurst in 1870 to William and Marguerita Cocks who moved to Kiama in the 1880s and ran a general store in Manning street. Samuel studied art in Sydney and won prizes in the Art Students Prizes at the National Art Gallery of New South Wales in 1890: “In the still-life group, Mr S. Cocks wins the first prize for a well-painted representation of a decanter and glasses on a table. The picture is particularly well-painted and well-deserving of its place” ( Sydney Morning Herald , 8 January 1890, p.8)commented “... among the still-life studies in oil, the first prize of £5 is awarded to no.35 by S. Cocks – a really admirable study of a decanter containing some wine, a wine glass, bronze candlestick, table-napkin and ring, standing on a polished table. The dark crimson curtain forming the background is well chosen for effect” ( Illustrated Sydney News , 22 January 1890, p.22). He went on to exhibit in the Society of Artists in 1895 and 1899. By that time he had already learned photography and was winning prizes in art photography and had worked published in the British journal _Photograms of the Year _in 1900 and 1901.

Cocks joined the studio of Henry Holden’s in Kiama established in 1889, and took over the studio in 1898. He was winning prizes for his art photographs. Cocks continued sales and exhibitions of his impressionistic water colour paintings mostly sea and landscapes until late life.

Cocks was active in sports and social bodies and well known. He made extensive tours of the district building a large inventory. A fine album in the State Library of New South Wales of the Coolangatta Estate is extraordinary for its record of the indigenous servants and farm workers. An album of New Zealand views exists but how long Cocks was there is not certain.
A large archive of Cock’s glass plates of landscape, architecture and people Kiama and the South coast, is held by the University of Woolongong.

Writers:
Staff Writer
Date written:
1999
Last updated:
2022

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References [<ExternalResource: 'NSW Death Records : 9348/1948; 13888/1912; 37/1939'.>, <ExternalResource: (1890), Sydney Morning Herald, 01-08, p. 8.>, <ExternalResource: (1890), Illustrated Sydney News, 01-22, p. 22.>, <ExternalResource: Information sourced from Anderson, Ingrid.>, <ExternalResource: Information sourced from Deakin, Edwina.>, <ExternalResource: Photograms of the Year Dawbarn, London, 1900 pp 45,49,illus p.46>, <ExternalResource: Photograms of the Year , 1904 p.32>, <ExternalResource: Robyn Florence and Graham Harmer, The man behind the camera Samuel Cocks artist and photographer 1870-1948, Kiama Historical Society, c 2021 >] [<ExternalResource: 'NSW Death Records : 9348/1948; 13888/1912; 37/1939'.>, <ExternalResource: (1890), Sydney Morning Herald, 01-08, p. 8.>, <ExternalResource: (1890), Illustrated Sydney News, 01-22, p. 22.>, <ExternalResource: Information sourced from Anderson, Ingrid.>, <ExternalResource: Information sourced from Deakin, Edwina.>, <ExternalResource: Photograms of the Year Dawbarn, London, 1900 pp 45,49,illus p.46>, <ExternalResource: Photograms of the Year , 1904 p.32>]