Allyn Cox

Cox was a son of Kenyon Cox and his wife, the former Louise Howland King, both of whom were artists. His siblings were Leonard and Caroline.

He studied at the National Academy of Design, Art Students League of New York, and the American Academy in Rome. In 1940, he was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate Academician, and became a full Academician in 1962.

Mural in the George Washington Masonic National Memorial

Cox at work on one of his many murals in the United States Capitol building

Cox apprenticed with his father, whom he worked with when working on murals for the Wisconsin State Capitol. His first solo mural may have been over the fireplace at the Windsor Public Library.[1] Like his father, he served as the president of the National Society of Mural Painters.

In 1953, he was hired to complete the frieze in the Capitol Rotunda, which had been originally started by Constantino Brumidi and left unfinished since the 1880s. He painted murals on many of the other walls in the building, including a depiction of the first landing on the Moon in the Senate’s Brumidi Corridors of the Capitol. Starting in 1971, Cox designed and painted two of the three Cox Corridors in the Capitol, while the third was completed following his designs after his death.[2]

Some of his work may be seen at the George Washington Masonic National Memorial in Alexandria, Virginia. He also painted murals in houses owned by Anne (Mrs. William K.) Vanderbilt and Lincoln Ellsworth.

He served as President of the National Society of Mural Painters from 1942 to 1946 and again from 1960 to 1963.[3]

On April 30, 1927, Cox married Ethel Julia Howard Potter, a daughter of Howard Nott Potter and a great-niece of Henry Codman Potter, Episcopal Bishop of New York. His wife's uncle by marriage was society architect William Adams Delano. Cox died of a stroke in 1982.[1]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Allyn Cox.

• Henry Clay by Allyn Cox
• America's First Moon Landing, July 21, 1969, by Allyn Cox