 Photograph of Frank N. Wilcox, between 1927 and 1964. Frank N. Wilcox papers, 1906-1976. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. |
Frank Nelson Wilcox | |
| Birth Date: October 3, 1887 |
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| Death Date: April 17, 1964 Artist Gallery |
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| Frank Nelson Wilcox, Jr. was born in 1887 to Frank Nelson Wilcox and Jessie Fremont Snow Wilcox in Cleveland, Ohio.
In 1906 Wilcox was enrolled in the Cleveland School of Art under the teachers Henry Keller, Louis Rorimer and Frederick Gottwald. Wilcox also attended Keller’s Berlin Heights summer school. He joined the Cleveland School of Art faculty in 1913. Among his students were Lawrence Blazey , Carl Gaertner, Paul Travis, and Charles Burchfield. In 1916 Wilcox married artist Florence Bard and they spent their honeymoon painting in Berlin Heights with Henry Keller.
Wilcox stated in 1952: "For my own part I regard the visible aspects of nature with awe, reverence, wonder, and delight and cannot conceive another attitude sufficiently devotional. Whatever the reactions of others may be to this work, according to natural taste or acquired esthetic standards, I myself have tried to hold to my belief in the essential value of genre painting in which the human element does not outweigh its environment. I believe the artist may, and often does, see things differently. Yet, like the average man, he should look outwardly for his inspiration and less inwardly, lest he fail to convey a significant message through this visual channel. Art is perennial and subject matter at least, should be timeless."
Wilcox was a modernist American artist and a master of watercolor. He is described as the “Dean of Cleveland School painters.”
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