Elizabeth Updike Cobblah (born 1955) is an American art teacher and ceramicist, painter, and illustrator in Massachusetts. She is the eldest child of author

John Updike John Hoyer Updike (March 18, 1932 – January 27, 2009) was an American novelist, poet, short-story writer, art critic, and literary critic. One of only four writers to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction more than once (the others being Booth Tar ...

, and was the model for several of his characters. She is married to Tete Cobblah.

Early life and education

Elizabeth Pennington Updike was born in 1955 in England while her father,

, and mother, Mary Pennington (Updike) Weatherall, were studying at

Oxford University The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the second-oldest continuously operating u ...

's Ruskin School of Drawing. John Updike wrote "March a Birthday Poem" about Cobblah's birth. As an infant she returned to New York City with her parents while her father wrote for ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...

''.Adam Begley, ''Updike'' (2014) https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0062109669 The family then moved to

Ipswich, Massachusetts Ipswich is a coastal town in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 13,785 at the 2020 census. Home to Willowdale State Forest and Sandy Point State Reservation, Ipswich includes the southern part of Plum Island. A res ...

, where she spent most of her childhood with her three younger siblings, including the writer

David Updike David Updike (born 1957) is an American writer and academic. Updike is the son of author John Updike, who used him as a model for characters in several works of fiction, including ''Wife-wooing, Avec la Bebe-sitter, Son'', and ''Separating''. Davi ...

. She graduated from the

Pingree School Pingree School is a coeducational, independent secondary day school located in South Hamilton, Massachusetts, serving the area north and east of Boston. Its students commute from 50 cities and towns, from as far south as Everett, as far north ...

Salem State University Salem State University (Salem State or SSU) is a public university in Salem, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1854, it is the oldest and largest institute of higher education on the North Shore and is part of the state university ...

and then

Rhode Island School of Design The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD , pronounced "Riz-D") is a private art and design school in Providence, Rhode Island. The school was founded as a coeducational institution in 1877 by Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf, who sought to increase th ...

in Providence, where she met her husband, Tete Cobblah, a native of

Ghana Ghana, officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It is situated along the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, and shares borders with Côte d’Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, and Togo to t ...

. They have two sons.

Career

In 1990 Cobblah illustrated ''The Predator'', a book written by her grandmother,

Linda Grace Hoyer Updike Linda Grace Hoyer Updike (1904–1989) was an American writer from Plowville, Pennsylvania. She was the mother of writer John Updike and grandmother of writer David Updike. Linda Updike also served as the model for several of her son's character ...

. Characters based on Cobblah appear in many of her father's published writings, including "Grandparenting", the ''

Rabbit Rabbits are small mammals in the family Leporidae (which also includes the hares), which is in the order Lagomorpha (which also includes pikas). They are familiar throughout the world as a small herbivore, a prey animal, a domesticated ...

'' series, "Toward Evening," "Incest," "Should Wizard Hit Mommy," "Avec la Bebe-sitter," "The Music School," "Daughter, Last Glimpses," and "Separating." Since Updike's death in 2009, Cobblah has been an active supporter and donor to Updike's museum in Pennsylvania as well as charities for the disabled in Ghana.Life-Long Learning - Pingree School, www.pingree.org/uploaded/publications/pingreebulletinfw0708.pdf She teaches art at the Fenn School in Concord, and lives in

Maynard, Massachusetts Maynard is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The town is located 22 miles west of Boston, in the MetroWest and Greater Boston region of Massachusetts and borders Acton, Concord, Stow and Sudbury. The town's populatio ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cobblah, Elizabeth Updike American women illustrators American women ceramists 20th-century American ceramists People from Maynard, Massachusetts People from Ipswich, Massachusetts Rhode Island School of Design alumni Salem State University alumni 1955 births Living people Pingree School alumni 21st-century American women artists 20th-century American women artists 21st-century American ceramists 20th-century American illustrators 21st-century American illustrators Ceramists from Massachusetts