Betty Cooke, who was known for her uniquely designed sculpted jewelry and as the founder of what is now The Store Ltd. in Cross Keys, died Tuesday at her Ruxton home. She was 100.
No cause of death was available, according to family members. “Betty was a national force in design,” said Fred Lazarus IV, former president of the Maryland Institute College of Art. “I think clearly that her legacy as a designer is simply remarkable.
She was a modernist and so far ahead of her time.” Betty Cooke, the daughter of Francis William Cooke, a B & O Railroad clerk and artist, and Katharine Cooke, a singer and a teacher, was born in Baltimore and raised in Howard Park. After graduating from Western High School, she earned degrees from what is now the Maryland Institute College of Art and a bachelor’s degree in fine arts in 1946 from Johns Hopkins University.
Her interest in art began when as a 10-year-old, she would tag along with her father to Gwynns Falls/Leakin Park where she would set up an easel next to him and paint the world around her. In the 1940s while a student at MICA, she began designing with silver and brass. Ms.
Cooke learned to work a blowtorch with nozzles of various calibers, a hand drill, a fret saw, pliers and a vise. In a 1951 Baltimore Sun interview, she explained how she saw in silver and brass “an easy rhythmic motion.” “She’d drive across the country to museum shops showing and selling her work,” Mr.
Lazarus said. “She was not only an amazing e.