Janet de Coux

Janet de Coux (or De Coux[1]) (October 5, 1904 – 2000) was an American sculptor born in Niles, Michigan to Bertha Wright de Coux and the Reverend Charles John de Coux. She is best remembered for her ecclesiastical reliefs and statues.

Early years

When she was eight years old her family moved to Gibsonia, Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh.[2] While still in high school De Coux began attending the Carnegie Institute of Technology where she studied with Joseph Bailey Ellis. Deciding that the program there was not geared enough to the fine arts she moved to The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation and then she attended the school of the Art Institute of Chicago. Whitney Warren wrote her a letter of introduction to C. Paul Jennewein, for whom she worked as an assistant. This was followed by stints working for Aristide Cianfarani in Providence, where she attended the Rhode Island School of Design, and with Alvin Meyer in Chicago.[3] Later she served as an assistant to James Earle Fraser after she had helped enlarge his equestrian statue of Theodore Roosevelt.[4]

During the Great Depression US President Franklin Deleno Roosevelt initiated the New Deal. One of its programs was the Federal Art Projects under which the federal government hired artists, mostly painters and sculptors to create art for a variety of public places, often post offices. De Coux carved a relief, "Vacation Time" for the post office in Girard, Pennsylvania. In 1984 the piece was listed as “in storage.”[5]

Later career

German critic Anton Henze selected de Coux’s “St. Benedict” as one of the United States’ notable, recent (1956) contributions to Roman Catholic art in his work ‘’Contemporary Church Art.[6]

Work

Her work can be found at the following locations:[7]

References
  1. McGlauflin, Alice Coe, ed., Who’s Who in American Art, 1938-1939, vol. 2, The American Federation of Arts, Washington D.C. (1937) p. 141
  2. Charlotte Streifer Rubinstein (1990). American women sculptors: a history of women working in three dimensions. G.K. Hall. ISBN 978-0-8161-8732-4.
  3. Rubenstein, Charlotte Streifer, American Women Sculptors, G.K. Hall & Co., Boston (1990), p. 282-282.
  4. Evert, Marilyn, Discovering Pittsburgh’s Sculpture, photographs by Vernon Gay,University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh (1983), p. 401.
  5. Park, Marlene and Gerald E. Markowitz, Democratic Vistas: Post Offices and Public Art in the New Deal, Temple University Press, Philadelphia (1984), p. 226.
  6. Henze, Anton and Theodor Filthaut, Contemporary Church Art, translated by Cecily Hastings, edited by Mauricce Lavanoux, Sheed & Ward, New York, p. 114.
  7. "Smithsonian Institution Research Information System". siris-artinventories.si.edu. Retrieved 2 June 2017.
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