CJ Cook

CJ Cook is an award-winning author and historian specializing in the art, artists, and cultural history of the South Pacific.

His books have received multiple honors from the Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA). Tyree, Artist of the South Pacific earned Gold Awards for Best Cover and Best Biography in 2018, while Leeteg: Babes, Bars, Beaches, and Black Velvet Art received the IBPA Gold Medal for Best Biography in 2022. His biography Edithe Beutler: Beautifying Hawai‘i with Color received the 2026 IBPA Silver Award for Art and Photography.

Cook is also the author of Beauty in the Beast: The Flora, Fauna, and Endangered Species of Artist Ralph Burke Tyree and, just released in August, 2026, Robert Lee Eskridge: Affable Artist, Author, and Adventurer in Tahiti, Hawai‘i, Brazil, and Beyond. The Eskridge biography spans 344 pages and features 509 images, including more than 200 works by the artist, offering the most comprehensive account yet of the life and career of this modernist Art Deco painter, muralist, author, and world traveler.

Drawing on original letters, photographs, artworks, and archival sources, Cook brings overlooked South Pacific artists and their remarkable worlds back to life.