urging, he joined the faculty at UNM in 1971,
where, by special agreement, Coke was still regard-
ed as a part-time lecturer.
Coke was initially greeted enthusiastically by the
board of trustees at Eastman House. Newly inde-
pendent of Eastman Kodak Company, the museum
was growing rapidly. The board hoped that Coke’s
business and management experience as president
of his family’s hardware company in Kentucky,
where he worked from the time he was discharged
from the US Navy at the end of World War II until
he began graduate school in 1954, would help them
survive as an independent arts institution. As direc-
tor, however, Coke soon discovered that Kodak
still had significant control of Eastman House and
did not agree with his vision of the museum as a
prominent center of fine art photography. Coke
resigned the position in 1972. His legacy was a
name change to the International Museum of
Photography and Film at George Eastman House,
and during his tenure, photo conservation proce-
dures were researched and initiated. He also revived
Imagemagazine, an Eastman House publication,
after a six-year hiatus.
Coke returned to UNM as chairman of the art
department and remained until 1979, when he was
hired as director of the department of photography
at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Coke
mounted many innovative shows in San Francisco
that explored the new directions that the medium
was taking. In 1985, he curatedBehind the Eyes:
Eight German Artists, the first American exhibition
of photography by contemporary German artists
who also worked in other media. In 1983, he gave
former student Joel-Peter Witkin his first solo exhi-
bition in a major American museum. The same
year, Coke also mounted the first in-depth show
of Edward Weston’s Mexico photos.
Coke had first met Weston in the summer of 1938,
when as a teenager he drove his father’s Ford from
Lexington, Kentucky to Carmel, California to meet
his idol. Ten years later, still under Weston’s influ-
ence as a photographer, Coke studied art in San
Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Coke’s photographs
tend toward the surreal; he was described in a 1992
review in theNew York Timesas ‘‘an idiosyncratic
photographer with a morbid eye.’’ He experimented
with ‘‘flashing prints’’ that involved darkroom
manipulation in the 1970s before returning to
straight Cibachromes in the 1980s. He demon-
strated an interest in photographs that pushed the
traditional limits of the medium; ‘‘but after finding
it,’’ he has said, ‘‘I got tired of looking for things that
were strange.’’ His students, however, give testa-
ment to his enthusiasm for blurring the lines
between photography and other media.
‘‘I always court enigma,’’ Coke has said, adding
that he believes enigma is the essence of art. His
photographs have been exhibited internationally,
and he has championed the fine art of photography
in books published in Europe, Central America,
Hawaii, and the American Southwest. He has writ-
ten text to accompany catalogues, both of photo
shows he has curated and as a guest contributor,
and has compiled and edited essays on diverse
subjects relating to photography as fine art. A
book of his own photography,Secular and Sacred:
Photographs of Mexico, has been published.
Coke remained at the San Francisco Museum of
Modern Art until 1987, when he retired to Santa
Fe. He died on July 11, 2004.
RenataGolden
Seealso: Meatyard, Ralph; Newhall, Beaumont;
Schools of Photography: United States; Weston,
EdwardBiography
Born Frank Van Deren Coke in Lexington, Kentucky on
July 4, 1921. Had taken courses in sculpture and design
as a boy; received a degree in history and art history at
the University of Kentucky, Lexington in 1942. Studied
photography with Nicholas Haz in 1939; at the Clar-
ence White School of Photography in New York in
1940; and with Ansel Adams in 1952 and 1955. Worked
in the wholesale hardware distributing business
founded by his grandfather, Van Deren, in the 1940s.
Served as a naval officer during World War II,
returned to family business after discharge and resigned
as company president in 1954. Received MFA in art
history and sculpture from Indiana University, Bloo-
mington in 1958. Assistant professor of photography
and photo history at the University of Florida, 1958–
1961; assistant professor of photography and photo
history at Arizona State University, Tempe, in 1961–- Appointed director of the art museum at the
University of New Mexico (UNM), Albuquerque in - Served as art museum director and professor of
art until 1966 and again from 1973–1979; chairman of
the UNM Department of Art 1962–1970. From 1970–
1972 served first as deputy director and then director of
the International Museum of Photography and Film,
the George Eastman House, Rochester, New York.
Director of Photography at the San Francisco Museum
of Modern Art, 1979–1987. Received the Photography
International Award, 1955, 1956, 1957; International
Prize,U.S. Camera, 1957, 1958, 1960. John Simon
Guggenheim Fellowship, 1975; Senior Fulbright scho-
lar, Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Aukland,
New Zealand, 1989. Awarded the E. Leitz, Inc. Medal
of Excellence ‘‘Educator of the Year Award,’’ 1988;
Distinguished Career in Photography award from the
Friends of Photography in San Francisco, 1992. Gal-
COKE, VAN DEREN