The Bed (Pedro, Nina, and Perrito)

Barbara Latham

This image was used in the 1939 children's book Pedro, Nina, and Perrito, written by Lily Duplaix. It follows the adventures of a brother and sister and their pet dog Perrito, who live in Chiquito, New Mexico. An excerpt from The New Mexico Quarterly, Vol. 9, Issue 4, reads: "Pedro, Nina, and Perrito, a recent Harper's publication, has lithographs by Barbara Latham in six colors and in black and white, and are stunning enough to be framed." Latham would later go on to write and illustrate another book about Perrito in 1946, Perrito's Pup.

Barbara Latham was born on a rural New England farm in Walpole, Massachusetts on 6 June 1896. The Latham family moved to Norwich, Connecticut where he father taught science at the Norwich Free Academy. At eight years-of-age, Barbara was given a scholarship to attend Saturday afternoon classes at the academy. Her formal training began at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York where she graduated in 1919. Latham also spent several summers at the Art Students League Summer School in Woodstock where she studied with modernist painter, Andrew Dasburg.

Latham worked in the commercial art field designing illustrations for holiday cards and produced illustrations for Forum magazine and the New York Times Sunday magazine. In 1925, she visited Colorado and then Taos, New Mexico to find regional subjects for her holiday card illustrations. Latham recalled her first impressions of Taos: “I had lived under the brilliant western sky all summer, but I had never experienced such brilliance, contrasted with such fragrant desert...I loved Taos from the moment I stepped off the train.”

Latham returned the following summer and was introduced to her future husband, Howard Cook, by the Taos artist Victor Higgins. Cook and Latham wed in Santa Fe in 1927. The couple purchased a house on the Talpa ridge near Taos in 1938 and lived there until 1973 when they moved to Roswell, New Mexico. Due in part to Cook’s ill health, their final move was to Santa Fe in 1976.

Latham painted in watercolor, oil, and egg tempera. Regarding her printmaking, she worked in etching, wood and linoleum engraving, and lithography. She also produced illustrations for the books Pedro, Nina and Perritto and Maggie. In 1934, Latham had a solo exhibition at the Weyhe Gallery in New York. She was associated with the Taos Moderns and was part of Mabel Dodge Luhan's circle of artists and writers.

Barbara Latham died in Santa Fe, New Mexico on 28 May 1989.