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About Charles Brinton Cox
This painter and sculptor (1864-1905) was born in Philadelphia. He studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts under Thomas Eakins, then at the Art Students League in New York. Reportedly he also studied at the National Academy of Design and in Paris. Cox won a silver medal at the American Art Society in Philadelphia in 1902. He is known for his sculptures of animals and for paintings of cowboys and Mexican vaqueros.
The exhibition record of Cox is as follows:
1890: (PAFA) Buffalo
1891: (NAD) The Scout
1894: (PAFA) A Buffalo (sculpture); Steady (sculpture)
1895: (PAFA) Incident of a Bull-fight, Mexico (sculpture)
1896: (AIC) Incidents of Bull-fight, Mexico (wax and plaster sculpture)
1896-97: (PAFA) Painting the Town (sculpture); R.B.A. Linton (sculpture)
1897: (AIC) Coyote of the Southwest (bronze)
1898: (PAFA) Coyote of the Southwest (bronze)
1899: (PAFA) Fragment of he Jubilee (sculpture); The Northwest
Cowboy (sculpture)
1900: (AIC) El Texan Vaquero (bronze)
1901: (AIC) Pay Day, Mexico; The Coyote (bronze)
1901: (PAFA) The Round-up, Santa Rosa Range, Mexico
1902: (AIC) Apache Buffalo Hunt; The Round-up; Buffalo Range
1904: (AIC) Ladrones
1905: (PAFA) El Texan Vaquero (sculpture); Incident of a Bull-fight,
Mexico (sculpture)
Cox’s Self-portrait, From the Mirror, therefore, is the only known portrait by the artist. It is an expressive, forthright look at one’s self in a mirror, which has been the method of self-portraiture since the Renaissance. Both the uniform and the appliqué pieces on the frame suggest military service, while the beret may be a souvenir of Paris. The expression is full of mischief and the "lean and hungry look" reminds us that life in the West was full of hardship. Compositionally speaking, the tilt of the head and the pointed beard create a major diagonal and give life and dynamism to the portrait.
LITERATURE:
Peggy Samuels and Harold Samuels. The Illustrated Biographical Encyclopedia of Artists of the America West (Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Co., 1976), pp. 110-111. | 
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