James Cook

For more than 40 years, James Cook has photographed contemporary Native American life. Traditional Subjects, begun at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, in 1984, is an archive of portraits of dancers, elders, artists and spiritual leaders from the Lakota, Tesuque Pueblo, Skokomish, Makah, Ojibwe, Odawa, Tlingit and other nations. Every subject is named and photographed with consent, typically in natural light. Each portrait carries a written account of the person.

His photograph The Centennial Ride to Wounded Knee is in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian. The project has been featured nationally on U.S. public television and in a 2022 solo exhibition at the Holland Museum in Michigan.

Cook began his career in 1976 as a freelance photojournalist in Denver. He was a frequent contributor to Time, Newsweek, Businessweek, Forbes, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and other publications worldwide. He lives in Saugatuck, Michigan.