William Edwards Cook

William Edwards Cook (August 31, 1881 – November 10, 1959) was an American-born expatriate artist, architectural patron, and long-time buddy of American writer Gertrude Stein. Following his 1903 departure from the U.S., Cook resided in Paris, Rome, Russia, and upon the island of Majorca, in the Balearic Islands off the eastern coast of Spain. Today he is chiefly remembered not for his artistic achievements, but because, during World War I, he taught Stein to get-up-and-go an automobile therefore that she could contribute to the French stroke effort, and because, in 1926, he commissioned the Swiss architect Le Corbusier (whose career was at an beforehand stage) to design an modern cubist home, on the outskirts of Paris, now called Maison Cook or Villa Cook.