Cox, David

Cox, David, landscape-painter, was born at Deritend, a suburb of Birmingham, 29th April 1793. His father was a blacksmith, and he worked at the forge for a time; and after trying various employments and studying drawing under Joseph Barber, he was scene-painter in the Birmingham, Swansea, and Wolverhampton theatres, and occasionally appeared upon the boards in minor parts. He next took lessons in London from John Varley; in 1805 and 1806 visited North Wales, which to the end of his life was his favourite sketching-ground; and taught as a drawing-master, mainly in Hereford, publishing A Treatise on Landscape Painting and Effect in Water-colours (1814), and other educational works, illustrated by soft-ground etchings by his own hand. In 1813 he joined the Society of Painters in Water-colours, to whose exhibitions he was a regular contributor. From 1827 till 1841 his headquarters were in London, but he was constantly sketching in the country, and occasionally he made brief visits to the Continent, executing water-colours of noble quality which slowly but steadily made their way with the public, and are now recognised as entitling their painter to a place among the very first of English landscapists. In 1839 he turned his attention seriously to oil-painting, a medium which he had hitherto used only for sketching, and soon he had mastered the process. He executed in all about a hundred works in oil. These are less widely known than his water-colours, but they are of at least equal quality. In 1841 he settled at Harborne, near Birmingham, where he resided for the rest of his life. It was during this period that he produced his greatest works, those most rapidly synthetic in execution, and most deeply poetic in feeling. They mainly owe their inspiration to the scenery of North Wales, and especially of Bettws-y-Coed (q.v.), which he visited every autumn. He died at Harborne, 15th June 1859. The manliness and simplicity of the painter's own character is reflected in his direct, faithful, and forcible art. His works are distinguished by great breadth, purity of tint, truth of tone, and brilliancy of effect, and they are admirable in their rendering of atmosphere, and in their suggestion of the sparkle and breezy motion of nature. Among the more celebrated of his oil pictures are 'Lancaster Castle' (1846); 'Peace and War' (1846), a small picture 18½ by 24 in., for which Cox received £20, but which fetched £3602 in 1872 (his lifelong ambition had been 'some day, D.V., to get £100 for a picture'); 'The Vale of Clwyd' (1846 and 1848); 'The Skylark' (1849); 'Boys Fishing' (1849); and 'The Church of Bettws-y-Coed.' Among his very numerous water-colours are 'Lancaster Sands' (1835); 'Ulverston Sands' (1835); 'Bolton Abbey' (1847); 'Welsh Funeral' (1850); and 'Broom Gatherers on Chat Moss' (1854). His water-colour titled 'The Hay-field,' fetched £2950 in 1875. His works have been frequently brought together in exhibitions, and he was admirably represented by forty-six examples in the Manchester Exhibition, 1887. See the Memoir by N. N. Solly (1875), and the Biography by William Hall (1881).—His son, David Cox the younger (1809-85), was also known as a water-colour painter.