Born in Mirfield, West Yorkshire, Nigel Cooke joined the Merchant Navy after leaving school and subsequently has held a number of jobs on the road to becoming a full-time artist. These included joining Butlins as their resident caricaturist and entertainer. He later went on to open caricature concessions on Blackpool’s Central Pier and Pleasure Beach, in the Trafford Centre Mall in Manchester, and at Alton Towers. During this time Nigel Cooke estimates the number of caricatures completed from live sittings to be in excess of 50,000.

He has also worked as a character designer for the Hong Kong based C.I.M International and remains a member of the National Caricature Network in the USA.

“My art is mainly humorous figurative paintings of people interacting.  Naturally, this has its foundations in my lifelong dedication to portraiture, caricature, humorous illustration and character design.” Nigel Cooke

From his caricature background Nigel Cooke has evolved his art into energised cityscape paintings and is currently one of the UK's most popular artists.