Editor's comments- during the 2003 convention in Minneapolis, Matt Laudenbach spoke about the life of Robert Atkinson Fox. With this outline of Matt's talk, I asked Barry and Beth Mroczka to review and to add additional information. We are very fortunate to have a more complete insight into Fox's life because of Rita Mortenson's research and her interviews with several of R.A. Fox's children. Since the profile presented here is very brief you can obtain more in-depth information about R.A. Fox in Rita Mortenson's first book, R. Atkinson Fox- His Life and Work. The first portion of this article comes mostly from Mortenson's book.
R.A. Fox was born in Toronto, Canada in 1860 and died in 1935 at age 75. Little information is known about Fox's early years.
1875--left home and perhaps school at age 15.
1877-1884-- was a portrait artist in Toronto (17 to 24 years of age).
1885-- Worked in a stained glass company to supplement his income as an artist. This presumably influenced his artistic skills.
1885- His artwork was shown in exhibits at the
Royal Canadian Academy of Arts and Ontario
Society of Artists. The exhibition catalog of the
Royal Canadian Academy of Arts listed the paintings exhibited by Fox and included the prices- Music Hath Charms ($50), A Sketch ($25), Skinner's Cove,
Labrador ($50), Landscape ($50), and The Gourmet ($150).
Below is the earliest known Fox artwork- titled "Going to the Fire". Plaque found under print has the date 1885. This photo is supplied by Barry and Beth Mroczka.
1885-1890- Fox moved during this period to the United States, most likely to New York City. He later resided in New Jersey and Philadelphia.
1891- An auction catalog from the Fifth Avenue Auction Rooms in New York City lists 45 titles of oils by R.A. Fox.
1893- A Boston Auction Catalog provides an offering of 152 paintings, of which eighty were by Fox.
1897- The exhibition catalog of the Art Club of Philadelphia has two listings for Fox - "Bull”, which was also illustrated in the catalog, and "Cattle". Fox, according to this catalog, was a pupil of J.W. Bridgman. Bridgman was a well-known art instructor and author of a highly respected book which detailed anatomy painting.
Below is the picture of "Bull" found in the 1897 Exhibit Catalog. Picture from the collection of Barry and Beth Mroczka.
1900- Fox began to work for the Thomas D. Murphy Company as well as other publishing companies. His work now appeared frequently on calendars.
1903- Fox (age 43) marries Anna Gaffney. Fox had been married previously and was a widower. Little is known of Fox's first marriage. R.A. and Anna reared a family of eight children. They lived in New Jersey and later moved to Chicago to be closer to the publishing companies.
Fox worked primarily as a portrait artist in the late 1800's. His work sold at auctions or by commission for as little as $15 or as high as the magnificent sum of $1,000.
Fox studied in London for some time because the Fox children recall their father being stranded on a ship enroute to England from New York for two weeks.
Because of the additional financial responsibilities of a new family, Fox sought a steadier source of income and found it with the newly formed calendar companies. As an illustrator-for-hire, the artist was forced to paint whatever his employers commissioned. This may have meant sacrificing creative freedom for what the publishers thought the public wanted. Because Fox did not paint exclusively for the calendar companies, he could still occasionally paint subjects that were more personally appealing.
Fox painted his landscapes inside his studio from sketches and from memory, recalls one of his sons. He seldom painted outdoors. Based upon information gathered in recent years, it seems Fox also painted from other artists' works, publications, historical events and photographs. Because of Rick Martin's research at the Thomas D. Murphy Company, we now know how prominent a role photos played in Fox's paintings. TDM would often send Fox a photo to paint. Did you ever wonder just how Fox ever came up with a particular arrangement for a group of cows? Rick's
research repeatedly produced records that showed the final print and an exact photo Fox used as the model. Every nuance of each cow was exactly duplicated size, coloring, posture, bent leg, etc. Fox apparently
did have the artistic freedom to paint the foregrounds and backgrounds as he chose. And the photos were not limited to animals. "Oh Susanna" and "Out of the Sky He Comes" both originated as photos. Below is a photo Rick Martin found in the TDM files. The cows and the trees are exactly the same in the image "The Herefords".
Fox added the foreground and mountains in the background and of course, his wonderful colors that we so much admire.
Fox's paintings sold to the publications industry were not necessarily intended to last. Sometimes Fox took a rough sketch, glued the paper to the canvas, and painted over it. Most of his paintings, however, were on canvas. Some of Fox's rough sketches were not attached to canvases and still exist.
For a while, Fox shared a studio in Chicago with Beatrice Tonneson, a professional photographer. There is much speculation that several works signed Tonneson are actually the work of Fox.
Fox would often paint oil in a single day. Then he would send it to the publisher who would often mark up the oil with comments telling Fox to move house to corner, move animals to center, add this, delete that. Fox would do the changes and return it to the publisher.
The publishers would usually pay Fox about $100 per oil. This, of course, entitled the publisher to all rights for thae of artists under contract. Speculation also has Fox using pseudonyms when he was not particularly happy with his efforts. Regardless, his pseudonyms often have their own individual characteristics apart from his main volume of work - the DeForest children, the Elmer Lewis animals, the Musson children and animals, and the Colvin children and St. Bernard dogs.
At the publisher's request, Fox's signature was not included on all of his oil paintings. The publishers would occasionally type his name on the print or, more often, publish the print with no name at all. This has led to much consternation for Fox collectors - is it a Fox or not? And a new phrase has even been coined -"an unsigned maybe".
So how do "unsigned maybes" become confirmed Fox prints? Calendars often come with attributions that are not on the print but are on the actual calendar "painting by Fox","painting by RA". "Fox or painting by R Atkinson Fox". There have even been a few signed oils found that prints were truncated from with the signature portions cropped. And confirmations come from diligent research done by collectors at the publishing companies or at the Library of Congress matching titles, descriptions and publishers.
Publishers also made mistakes with signatures. One example is a calendar with a print signed "G.B. Fox", below is a statement attributing it to a "painting by R.A. Fox", and this is followed with a biography of the
artist named "Wainright", a Fox pseudonym. Another example is two well-known George Wood landscapes found signed "R Atkinson Fox".
During the Golden Age of Illustration, it is thought Fox's artwork was published more than any other artist at that time. Robert Atkinson Fox was a much-diversified artist who offered so many varieties of subjects for the public to enjoy. This extremely prolific artist offered something for everyone - images of pretty ladies, children, dogs, horses, cows, elk, moose, lions, tigers, bears, landscapes, cottage scenes, portraits, historical events, and so much more.
To date, more than 1,115 prints have been identified as the works of R. A. Fox. This count includes his acknowledged pseudonyms.
Where did RA. Fox obtain his ideas in order to paint his images? The following is an intriguing story.
Rick Martin recently found a 1923 press booklet for the movie "The Covered Wagon". Included in the booklet are images found in a group of R A. Fox artwork that were published by the Thomas D. Murphy Co.
The images include "Oh Susanna- The Cover Wagon", "Covered Wagon" with the Fox pseudonym Geo. Woodworth, "The Journey's End- Oregon" and "The Covered Wagon- Crossing the Platte River".
Can we conclude that TDM asked Fox to put together a series of western paintings from the movie for their calendars? Or did Fox have the press book and did the paintings on his own and then took them to Murphy and asked if they would like to use them? This is one of the many mysteries about R A. Fox.
The press booklet for the 1923 movie, “The Covered Wagon” contains the following pages. All photos provided by Rick Martin.
Below, the page of the press booklet with the Geo Woodworth pseudonym, "The Covered Wagon"
.
Below, the page with Fox's "The Journey's End- Oregon", and "The Covered Wagon-Crossing the Platte River".
Another page of the press booklet with the boy playing the banjo. His real name is Johnny Fox. Below, the Sheet Music for "Oh Susanna".
R.A. Fox's image- titled
"Oh! Susanna- The Covered Wagon" Note similarities to the actual actors pictured in the press booklet.
