(Iowa State Capitol Rotunda) (Education, study for panel)
1907
Medium
Drawing
Classification
Drawing
Department
Smithsonian Collection
Museum
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Credit
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Allyn Cox
Accession Number
1959.10.15
Tags
Art Historical Context
In the grand tradition of American Beaux-Arts murals, Kenyon Cox's 1907 drawing *Education, study for panel* the preparatory vision for a decorative panel in the Iowa State Rotunda. Cox, a leading figure in the late 19th- and early 20th-century mural renaissance, championed classical ideals of beauty, harmony, and moral upliftment. His neoclassical style, rooted in Renaissance masters like Raphael, emphasized allegorical figures to inspire civic virtue—here, personifying Education as a noble pursuit central to a thriving democracy. This preparatory drawing, likely executed in pencil or charco...
About the Artist
Kenyon Cox · 1856–1919
Kenyon Cox (1856–1919) was born on October 27 in Warren, Ohio, to General Jacob Dolson Cox, a prominent politician and Civil War veteran, and Helen Finney Cox. Despite fragile health, young Cox pursued art at the Art Academy of Cincinnati before advancing to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. In 1877, he traveled to Paris, studying first under Carolus-Duran, then at the Éco...