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Kenyon Cox was among the best-known cultural figures in the United States during the first two decades of this century, thanks to his reputation as a mural painter and especially as a critic. In this first biography, H. Wayne Morgan focuses on Cox's development and personality, treating his art as ...

Kenyon Cox was among the best-known cultural figures in the United States during the first two decades of this century, thanks to his reputation as a mural painter and especially as a critic. In this first biography, H. Wayne Morgan focuses on Cox's development and personality, treating his art as an expression of his idealism. Cox was born in Warren, Ohio, grew up in the Cincinnati area, and attended the McMicken School of Design there. His art training continued in Paris, where he studied for five years in the academic setting of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts as well as in private ateliers, such as those of Emile Carolus-Duran, Rodolphe Julian, and Jean-Leon Gerome. An academic, Cox was committed to learning traditional drawing and composition before establishing his own artistic identity. Cox became well known as a muralist during the prosperous years from 1897 to the 1920s, providing works for the new state capitols of Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota, the Library of Congress, and several public buildings in New York City. His large allegorical decorations rested on a thorough knowledge of Italian Renaissance masters, many of whose works he had seen as an impressionable student. In addition, Cox's gift for pithy phrases and his obvious knowledge gained him considerable prominence as a critic and reviewer. Throughout his career, he emphasized the values of craftsmanship and of attachments to ongoing traditional ideals that emphasized harmony, order, and unity of artist and public. He became famous, or notorious, as an outspoken opponent of the trend toward modernism, which he believed glorified individual expression at the expense of communicating with an audience. Cox saw this asculturally divisive, destroying the power of art to expand the viewer's imagination and consciousness. Eventually, however, modernism overcame the traditional ideals and styles that Cox and many of his contemporaries had represented.

This is Flexner's portrait of Gilbert Stuart, painter of George Washington, and other founding fathers, who once shied away from a self-portrait he had begun to please his bride. Flexner presents us with a portrait constructed as the artist would have constructed it, frank, without flattery ...

This is Flexner's portrait of Gilbert Stuart, painter of George Washington, and other founding fathers, who once shied away from a self-portrait he had begun to please his bride. Flexner presents us with a portrait constructed as the artist would have constructed it, frank, without flattery, profound, and soul-stirring. A man once regarded as the probable successor of Sir Joshua Reynolds, Stuart was born in poverty in Rhode Island. He became through his art the intimate of the great of two continents. Yet, he never abandoned his disdain for worldly rank, or his fascination with character. He made huge sums in England but spent even more in dissipation. Prison yawned for him, and he fled his creditors. During his thirty-five American years, he painted with brilliance, creating a unique portrait manner. His rank as an artist was never questioned, but his nerves would not quiet. He drank, fought with his wife, and tortured his children. Stuart died as he lived: famous and bankrupt.