Help with Flower type, Robert Cox Oil on Canvas

Seems his prices range all over the scale too.
Hope this is a good one. I don't know my flowers very well.
Image measures 12" x 16".
Mikey

 

Roses, floribunda or hybrid tea.

 

Mikey, sorry to say this, but it's a factory painting. Years ago, I bought one for a guest room that looks almost the same, except with a blue background.

 

I found this bio of him . . .
http://artq.co.uk/Robert Cox/Robert Cox.html

 

If you can identify it as the work of an actual person, that changes the whole dynamic. What might otherwise be dismissed as factory art suddenly assumes value.

 

Not this time Pat. i also looked him up before i bought this one. Thank you af, for the possible ID. and moreotherstuff.
I saw that bio earlier too Messi.
Cool beans.

 

Cool, I'm glad, Mikey.

This is puzzling, though. My painting isn't signed Robert Cox (it has a different signature), but looks incredibly similar, even down to the framing. From something I just read on the web, it sounds like many people purchased paintings done by Cox right around the time I bought mine, in the mid-80s.

I know my painting IS a factory painting, so maybe they were copying Cox's work because his was selling? Or maybe he did work for a painting factory on the side? I guess I'll never know.

 

I think back in "the old place" somebody (maybe Brad?) posted a link to an article about factory paintings that talked about how some of them imitated famous artists. This was a few years ago, I think, so can't recall for sure.

 

Fig, I'm sure that's true. It's definitely what the Chinese are doing now, and it wouldn't surprise me if my painting was from China.

From looking at all of Cox's paintings that show up in Google and on eBay, it looks like he approached his own work like a factory. He was very prolific, and most of his paintings are very similar in their approach. But more power to him, since he probably made a reasonable income for a while, unlike many painters.

 

For dogged persistence with one subject, see George, Vincent and Oliver Clare who as far as I know never painted anything else apart from still lives of the 'Flowers and Fruit on a Mossy Bank' type.
Factory painters?




http://www.rehs.com/clare_family_virtex.htm?page=53


John and Harry Stinton really were factory painters working in the Worcester factories.



The reason these people became so skilled at their art and so famous was their focus on the subject in hand.

Someone unable to resist the temptation to paint 'Severed Hand and Empty Bottle on a Mossy Bank' or 'Duck Billed Platypus in a Highland landscape'
might never have attained their eminence,but may well have been a more interesting person.

 

"Grant M. Waters, in his book Dictionary of British Artists working 1900 - 1950, states that: "He [Oliver] was particularly gifted with animals. He taught his dog to stoke the fire and collect fruit from the greengrocer. On the night he died [(in 1927)], he sang 'Abide with me'. His dog died the same night."

So it seems at least one Clare was not entirely boring!

 

It appears the man was a factory in to himself. I, also, would have dismissed this as factory painting but maybe he was the inspiration for all the factory paintings. Factory paintings sell because they strike a chord with people, as do successful artists. They say imitation is the highest form of flattery.

I sincerely doubt that Cox initiated this style of floral still life but he seems to have made a career out of it. I don't know if his works hold more value than the factory paintings that are virtually indistinguishable or not. I assume that they do but, in my mind, it is not much warranted.

A quick search show that prices are generally low for his works on ebay with a few outliers. I wonder why a few sold for decent money while the rest were mostly tepid?

http://www.ebay.com/sch/Art-/550/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=robert+cox&LH_Complete=1&LH_Sold=1&rt=nc

 

Good or bad, a "listed" (and Google-able) name seems to make a big difference in perceived value most of the time. That's always bugged me, since I care much more about aesthetics than status. And Cox is on askart.com and is very Google-able.

The more I think about it, the more it seems that artists who became popular while they were alive were more likely to have hit on a signature look that found an audience... and that they then repeated over and over again.

It's really not very different than designers of clothes, jewelry, furniture, etc.... if it makes money, keep doing it.

 

I remember an art teacher in high school who said he was commissioned to paint a bunch of paintings (100 as I recall). He was provided with canvas and paint and cranked out what he called "motel art". I don't know if they were signed or not but it put food on his table and I imagine he did it many more times. I never saw any of them but I'm guessing it was something like this. Sometimes in art it seems to me that it's as much about the name as the art when it comes to value.

 

Well, I don't think artists should starve, so if they can make money doing factory-like art, then more power to them. However, like so much in life, familiarity breed contempt, so churning out the same type thing over and over may eventually work against the artist. (Kinkaide, et al.)

 

Exactly. Creating and selling what's hot will make you money and a reputation, but it may do you in as tastes change or if you overdo it.

 

What the world is missing is 'Kittens in Tea Cups' by Picasso, 'Country Cottage' by Salvador Dali, and 'Still life with Flowers' by Andy Warhol.

But no luck, they just plugged away with the bread and butter square women, soft watches and tin cans.

Just think how much better Van Gogh would have done with some nice pictures of horses in stables with a few dogs. And that bloke Turner, what good's a picture where you can't see any details like a proper photograph?

Don't get me started on that Rothko. Did he never think just how useless his so called pictures were to the Jigsaw Puzzle Industry?

 

Rothko jigsaw puzzles remind me of that one in the movie Sleuth -- it was completely white! At least Rothko gives you some colour to look at.

 

I've always wondered if artists who did Only abstract art, but nothing else, were able to paint something different. I am talking about the super abstract, scribble like, Rothko like pieces. The art defenders will say, oh, there is some genius idea and symbolic meaning behind all that mess. Ok, but were these painters really skillful? I like abstract art but will feel much better if people who are doing it are fully capable of painting real images, still life, nature, animals, people etc.

By the way, I had some pieces of R. Cox before( think still have one somewhere). Bought them cheap and sold them cheap. Always had the dilemma if it was a real person or factory art. I guess a real artist making factory style paintings.

 

I think you may be confusing Rothko with Jackson Pollock. Not a scribble to be found in Rothko's work. I love Rothko but hate Pollock. Pollock seems to be more about the method than any thought of composition. What I have found with most art and, particularly with abstract art, is that one needs to see it up close and personal. Looking at a picture of a Rothko leaves you feeling flat. In person, there is a quiet presence about Rothko's work. Agree that Pollock's work is just a jumbled mess.

After writing the above, I did a little reading and found
an essay comparing Rothko and Pollock. Seems they share some similarities in how they worked and related to their art. Maybe I just don't like the inner self that Pollock expressed.

http://www.michellemckdavis.com/Essays/rothko_v__pollock.htm