DAVID COX, SR., O.W.S. (1783-1859) Collections: Works by David Cox are found in major public and private collections throughout the world, from the Musee de Louvre (Paris) to the British Museum (London) to the Metropolitan Museum (New York City) as well as many others in Britain, North America, Australia, and Japan. If there is a single quality which may be said to characterize the work of Cox it is, perhaps, its essential "Englishness," and this, though in one sense narrowing, denotes the presence of a national flavor without which few works of art are entirely successful. --Trenchard Cox One of the geniuses of British watercolor painting, David Cox, the son of a blacksmith, was born at Deritend, near Birmingham, England. His talent was recognized early, and he was sent to study with the Birmingham drawing master Joseph Barber (1757-1811). He was apprenticed to a toy maker and thereafter became a scene painter at the Birmingham Theatre. Cox settled in London in 1804, where he continued to study. He began to take pupils of his own in 1808, slowly building a successful drawing practice. In 1814 he became drawing master to the military college at Farnham and published two books on watercolor painting. He was elected a member of the Old Watercolor Society [later the Royal Watercolor Society] in 1820 and was a popular contributor to its exhibitions for the rest of his life. Cox traveled often in England and North Wales. His first continental visits were to Belgium and Holland in 1826. He made two memorable sketching tours to Paris, Dieppe and Boulogne. He lived in London from 1826 to 1841, then moved to Birmingham to spend the rest of his life. After 1844, when he made a memorable tour of Yorkshire, he spent almost all his summers in North Wales. Cox's great contribution to British watercolor painting lay chiefly in handling rather than in any innovations in subject matter. More than most watercolorists of his generations, Cox departed from the use of line and flat washes. He depended instead on vigorous and fluid brush strokes, which often he applied in all directions, often superimposed or overlapping. He did not bring details into sharp focus. The result is an all-over liveliness of surface. He preferred simple compositions so that, despite the broken brushwork, his pictures never seem fussy. The "repetition" of touches gives the appearance of great spontaneity and speed, though meticulous care is required to achieve it. Cox's supreme mastery of technique and a profound ability to evoke atmosphere rank him among the great artists of the English School. In his subject matter and atmosphere, he is along with Peter DeWint, perhaps the most "English" of watercolorists. During the last twenty years of his life, he achieved a breadth and freedom in his painting which ranks him, along with Constable, as one of the first true "Impressionists."