author
David Cox
1783–1859
Best known for lively landscapes full of weather, light, and movement, this English painter helped shape the great tradition of British watercolor. His scenes of the countryside, especially in England and Wales, still feel fresh and immediate.
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About the author
Born near Birmingham in 1783, David Cox began working in art at a young age, first as an apprentice to a miniature painter and then assisting a theatrical scene-painter. He later moved to London, studied with the watercolorist John Varley, and built a successful career as a landscape painter and drawing master.
Cox became one of the key figures in British watercolor painting and was closely associated with the Old Water-Colour Society. He was especially admired for the way he captured shifting skies, rough weather, bright light, and the everyday energy of the natural world, often drawing on views from England and Wales.
In later life he returned to the Birmingham area, where he continued to work with increasing freedom and boldness. Today he is remembered as one of the major English landscape painters of the 19th century, with a style that many later writers have seen as forward-looking in its treatment of atmosphere and light.