Barrie Cooke was born in 1931, in Knutsford, England to William Jasper Cooke and Gladys (née Judge). His father was English, his mother American. He was brought up in England, Jamaica and Bermuda with his brother Colin (d. 2012), before a move to America in 1947.

Cooke studied Art History at Harvard University, having originally planned to study Biology. He graduated in 1953 and later returned to England before moving to Ireland, where he is said to have felt immediately at home. He travelled to Austria in 1955 to attend Oscar Kokoschka’s School of Seeing for 3 months. In 1960 he met Ted Hughes for the first time, having previously corresponded with him. He also began a friendship with John Montague around that time. He met Seamus Heaney in the later 1960s. In 1965 Cooke moved to Kilkenny and then to Thomastown, County Kilkeeny. Trips to East Malaysia in 1975 and New Zealand in the later 1980s and 1990s had a dramatic impact on his paintings. In 1981 he became a member of the Aosdána. In the 1990s he moved to Kilmactranny, Boyle, County Sligo.

He married Harriet Leviter (1936-1990) in 1957, with whom he had 2 daughters: Liadin and Julia. Cooke and Harriet separated in 1964 and Cooke became close to Sonja Landweer (1933-2019), a Dutch artist and ceramist. They were together for over 20 years, and had a daughter: Aoine. In 1991 Cooke married American poet Jean Valentine (1934-2020), ex-wife of his friend James Clarke Chase, whom he had known for many years. They were together until 1996. She returned to the United States and Cooke remained in Ireland. He later married the painter Pam Berry. Cooke formed very close friendships with Seamus Heaney, Ted Hughes and John Montague, but also corresponded with a wide variety of poets, writers and artists, particularly from Ireland, the United Kingdom and America. Cooke died in March 2014.

Sources: ‘Barrie Cooke’ by Aidan Dunne, with contributions by Seamus Heaney, Ted Hughes, John Montague, The Douglas Hyde Gallery and the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, 1986. 'Barrie Cooke', The Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, 2011.