American Art Collaborative

“[Cox] maintains that [Art’s] ultimate supremacy is inevitable . . . the day when it shall be acknowledged as second to none is his only thought.” William Coffin, 1891, quoted in Morgan, Kenyon Cox, 1856-1919: A Life in American Art, 199
American artist Kenyon Cox (1856-1919) was a portrait painter, illustrator, and writer, best known for the murals he created for public buildings such as the Library of Congress. He was also close friends with William Coffin, and in the summer of 1885, Cox stayed at the artist’s family farm in western Pennsylvania. Coffin made this portrait of his guest smoking a pipe in the carpentry shop. A painter’s palette behind Cox’s head symbolizes their professional kinship. (Morgan, Kenyon Cox, 1856-1919: A Life in American Art, 1994