Lot 590: Raymond James Coxon (British, 1896-1997) Welsh

Raymond James Coxon (British, 1896-1997) Welsh landscape signed (lower left) oils on canvas 62cm x 75cm. Provenance: By descent through the artist's family. Exhibited: City Art Gallery, Stoke on Trent, Raymond Coxon Retrospective, April - June 1987, no.30. Raymond Coxon was a painter for over 75 years, producing diverse art work which became collectable in artistic circles. His work was bought by figures such as Maynard Keynes, Sir Michael Sadler, Sir Edward Marsh and Henry Lamb, and his artwork now hangs in many museum collections. Coxon studied at Leeds College of Art (1919-21), where he became a close friend of the sculptor Henry Moore. Alongside Moore, Coxon visited France in 1922 and met Malliol and Bonnard. He went on to study at the Royal College of Art (1921-25), under Sir William Rothenstein and taught at Richmond School of Art (1925). In 1927 Coxon and his wife, together with Henry Moore and Leon Underwood formed the short-lived Independent Society. His first one man exhibition took place in 1928 with the London Artists Association at the Cooling Galleries. He went onto have one-man shows at the Leicester Galleries (1936, 1940, 1947 and 1960), was a member of the London Group (1932), the Chiswick Group (1938), and became an official war artist seconded to the navy in the Second World War (1940-45). Perhaps some of his most notable work, alongside his landscapes, were his portraits of his friends including Henry Moore, Ceri Richards, Vivian Pitchforth and John Piper.