A Love Story: Jerry Cooke And Mary Delaney

Artist Mary Delaney was 36 and working for an East Hampton frame shop in 1994 when noted photographer Jerry Cooke called asking for help hanging artwork in his Further Lane oceanfront home.

Not long after, she arrived with her ladder, hooks and tape measures, and knocked on his door. No one answered—so, she let herself in.

Beethoven was blasting loudly over the speaker system. All of the doors to the deck were open, and a summer breeze was swirling through the house.

It was like walking into paradise, she recently recalled. And there, sitting at a desk in the kitchen facing the ocean, was an older man dressed in white—white shirt, white pants and white hair.

“He kind of looked like God,” she smiled. “We discussed what he needed done, and he asked me to hang a Chinese five-panel screen.”

Jerry Cooke was 35 years her senior, an art collector who had traveled around the world as a photographer for Time, Life, Fortune, Collier’s, Sports Illustrated and European magazines for six decades. He had experienced success as a major sports photographer, shooting the Olympics, the Kentucky Derby and the Royal Ascot race in England. He also photographed famous sports figures: Cathy Rigby, Peggy Fleming, Mark Spitz, Jean-Claude Killy and Muhammad Ali.

Two days later, when Ms. Delaney returned to hang more pieces, she and Mr. Cooke realized they knew many of the same artists in the Hamptons. “We had a meeting of the minds and an art connection,” she recalled. “He was friends with Hedda Sterne, Helen Frankenthaler and other artists I knew of. He also liked my paintings, and encouraged my talent.”

Over lunch, Mr. Cooke showed her his house and gardens, and she listened as he took phone calls, speaking in French and German. He played Russian, Japanese and French music on his 45-rpm record player.

“I kept hanging paintings, and he didn’t want me to leave,” said Ms. Delaney, now 58. “I was impressed with his knowledge and worldliness, and I stayed for dinner. We talked all night. I didn’t leave until 11 a.m. the next day.” After that, they saw each other several times a week, for movies and dinner, and they traveled into Manhattan to visit art shows.

Such began a long relationship between Ms. Delaney and Mr. Cooke that culminated in marriage 13 years later—six months before he died of cancer. During that time, he sold his Further Lane house and bought another home in East Hampton, where Ms. Delaney lives today.

Although the couple shared a common bond in the world of visual arts, Ms. Delaney and Mr. Cooke couldn’t have had more different pasts. While Ms. Delaney grew up in Brooklyn as one of 12 children, to parents of Irish descent, Mr. Cooke was born an only child in Odessa, Russia, as Yuri Kutschuk. His family emigrated to Milan, and then Berlin, in 1923.

His father, George Kutschuk, sold photos to European publications, and his aunt, Cecile Kutschuk, worked at the Associated Press with Wilson Hicks, who later became executive editor in charge of photography for Life magazine. She also ran a photo agency called Pix Inc. in Manhattan, which Time bought in the 1960s. It was there Mr. Cooke had gotten his start, as an apprentice under Alfred Eisenstaedt.

Starting in 1954, Mr. Cooke shot 47 covers for Sports Illustrated, and he became the magazine’s director of photography in 1974. Throughout his extensive sports and photojournalism career, he photographed 16 Olympic Games, 42 Kentucky Derbys and numerous sports stars. He visited five continents and more than 100 countries, and spoke five languages fluently.

Mr. Cooke’s award-winning photograph, “Ohio Insane Asylum,” was selected for the international exhibition “The Family of Man,” curated by Edward Steichen in 1955, at the Museum of Modern Art. In 1956, he was one of the first westerners allowed into post-Stalin Russia, where he photographed Boris Pasternak, author of “Dr. Zhivago,” and brought him a copy of his book, which had been banned in his country.

Although Mr. Cooke met Ms. Delaney when he was retired from his long career, he was still actively editing and selling his photos, and the two traveled to Paris for art shows, fine dining and sightseeing. They held dinner parties for their artist friends in their East Hampton home.

“Throughout this time, Jerry would always give me pink carnations,” Ms. Delaney said. “But on Valentine’s Day 2005, he gave me red roses, meaning love, and we got married in July. But, sadly, his health continued to decline, and he died in October.”

Since then, Ms. Delaney has been keeping her husband’s legacy alive. She ran the Delaney Cooke Gallery in Sag Harbor from 2008 to 2011, where she exhibited Mr. Cooke’s photography and the work of other local artists, and she has been archiving and selling his photos to museums and galleries around the world. She also produced a 45-minute documentary, “Jerry Cooke the Photographer,” which premiered at the Hamptons Take 2 Film Festival in 2008.

Last September, Mr. Cooke’s photos appeared in an exhibit at the Montauk Depot Gallery, and this spring Ms. Delaney’s paintings will be shown at the Peter Marcelle Gallery in Southampton.

With this Valentine’s Day approaching—marking the 10th anniversary since Mr. Cooke declared his devotion—Ms. Delaney said she still thinks about the red roses he gave her just before he died.

“It was the first time he realized that he truly loved me, and he even took a photograph of our orange cat, Lucky, next to the flower vase,” she said. “I still have it on my computer screen and on my refrigerator. I think of all the photos I’m archiving, it’s still my special favorite.”

For more information about Jerry Cooke, visit jerrycookearchives.com.