Oil on canvas, 1958, titled and inscribed on the verso, retains gallery label to verso, presented in wooden frame.

SS 23.75 x 34 7/8 in.; DOA 25.25 x 36 3/8 in.

Collection of a Raleigh Gentleman

Dr. George Poland, Raleigh, NC
Gallery C, Raleigh, NC

Born in Indianapolis, Cox studied art at the John Herron Art School and the University of Iowa. In 1954 he accepted a teaching position at NC State University where he became one of the leading artists and educators in the State. Paintings by Joe Cox are in such prominent collections as the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh, NC; the Mint Museum in Charlotte, NC; the Chrysler Museum in Norfolk, VA; and the High Museum in Atlanta, GA.

Not only is this a major work significant in Cox's progressive study of color (for which he is well-known, and which reached an apogee with his famous electronic "Color Wall" at D.H. Hill Library at NCSU), but it represents a confluence of art and architecture at perhaps the height of mid-century Modernism in North Carolina. After this painting was displayed at the North Carolina Museum of Art in 1959, it was purchased by Dr. George Poland, on the faculty for many years at NCSU, to hang in the living room of his Raleigh home, designed in 1954 by renowned North Carolina architect George Matsumoto. The house was completed in 1956 and was originally located on Arrow Drive, looking down from a bluff onto land on which Crabtree Valley Mall was built in 1973. In 2001 the house was saved by Preservation North Carolina and moved to Durham County, where it was restored and expanded. This painting passed from the Poland estate through Gallery C in Raleigh, and was acquired by the current owner in 2002.

Light surface grime; some crackle.

$2,000 - 4,000