Joe Cox

Joe Cox grew interested in art as a high school student in Indianapolis, and honed his skills in college and graduate school. While he was in his twenties, the government commissioned him to paint murals for Michigan and Indiana post offices. In 1954 he landed a teaching position at North Carolina State University, where he remained for the next twenty years. Long after his years of working for the New Deal--sponsored Works Progress Administration, Cox continued to experiment with mural decoration, using such diverse materials as stained glass, anodized aluminum, and cast stone. He suffered from Parkinson’s disease and died at the age of eighty-two. (Mecklenburg, The Public As Patron, 1979)