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COKE -- Frank Van Deren Coke, aged 83. Photographer, Writer, Educator, Museum Director. Van Deren Coke died in Albuquerque, NM, on 11 July 2004. He was born on Independence Day 1921 in Lexington, KY. He served in the U.S. Navy from 1942 to 1945, first as an intelligence officer, then as a gunnery officer on a Destroyer escort in the Atlantic, and later as a commanding officer of an LST in the Pacific, including the Okinawa Campaign. In 1956, Van left Kentucky to study at Indiana University for an MA in Art History and an MFA in Sculpture. Later, while an Assistant Professor of Art at the University of Florida, he studied during the summers at Harvard for his Ph.D. in Art History. After a short time teaching at Arizona State University in Tempe, he was appointed in 1962 as founding Director of the University Art Museum, Chairman of the Department of Art and Professor of Art History at the University of New Mexico. During this time he wrote Taos and Santa Fe: The Artist's Environment, 1882 - 1942, and then he wrote The Painter and the Photograph: From Delacroix to Warhol. In 1970 he was first appointed Deputy Director, then Director of the International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House (Kodak), Rochester, NY. Van returned to NM in 1972, resuming his university appointments as a Professor and Director of the Art Museum. He taught as a Visiting Professor at a number of schools, including the University of California, Arizona State University, St. Martin's School of Art in London, England, and Auckland University, New Zealand. In 1979 Van named the Director of the Department of Photography at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, organizing many seminal exhibitions and catalogues, including Avant-Garde Photography in Germany 1919-1939 and Photography: A Facet of Modernism (with Diana Dupont). He remained in this post until his retirement in 1987 when he moved to Santa Fe. Van continued to lecture and stage exhibitions, until early this year, lecturing in the fields of art history, the history of photography and Mexican folk art. He also continued to write books; one of which about painting in New Mexico will be published posthumously. As a recipient of many national and international awards, his eightieth birthday was celebrated publicly in Santa Fe and, despite his long absence from Kentucky, he was made an honorary Kentucky Colonel. Van is survived by his second wife Joan, (n‚e Gillberry) and by his daughter, Browning Coke and son, Sterling Coke, both of Albuquerque. His first wife, Eleanor, died in 1984. A Memorial Service will be held on Saturday, September 18, 2004 at 1:00 p.m. in Keller Hall in UNM's Center for the Arts. A retrospective exhibition of his work will be held concurrently at the University of New Mexico Art Museum. In lieu of flowers Van asked that donations be made to the: Van Deren Coke Graduate Scholarship Fund, Dept. of Art and Art History, MSCO4 2560, 1 University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131. French Mortuary 1111 University Blvd. NE 843-6333
        Published on: Thu July 22, 2004