During his long life Joseph (Joe) Hervey Cox worked through a variety of styles in different media. Early on he was a realist in the manner of American regionalism, but then shifted to more expressive abstractions, usually rendered in acrylics. Simultaneously, he painted fresh realistic watercolors of the North Carolina coast.
Cox was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, and received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the local John Herron Art Institute (now affiliated with Indiana University). He went on to receive his Master of Fine Arts from the University of Iowa in Iowa City. At the time of his wedding in 1943 he was living in Marshalltown, Iowa; the marriage certificate lists his occupation as naval aviator, with a rank of ensign. During his service he was stationed in Pensacola, Florida, and San Diego, California.
While in his twenties he received two commissions for post offices under the auspices of the Works Progress Administration. Like most other New Deal muralists, Cox’s paintings were representational and, like many WPA murals, celebrated hard work. In 1938 his artwork for the Garrett, Indiana, post office was Clearing the Right of Way which depicts several men with saws and axes preparing timber for a railroad car in the background. Two years later, for Alma, Michigan, the subject is a harvest scene.
Cox took teaching positions at various universities, including Iowa and Florida. The 1950 census indicates he was an associate professor of fine arts at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. In 1954 he joined the faculty at North Carolina State University School of Design in Raleigh. He remained there for twenty years. In 1972 Cox installed a commissioned light installation called the Color Wall that was visible through the windows of the D.H. Hill Jr. Library. He invented his own mechanical device that would change colored spotlights against strips of aluminum on a white wall, turning them off and on to give the illusion of movement. The mural, as it was often referred to, became inoperable by 2000. As it was so beloved by the community, a grassroots campaign was initiated in 2009 for its repair and the Color Wall was relit in 2010.
Joe and his wife, Betsy, stumbled upon the town of Oriental, North Carolina, some time in the 1950s and together discovered their love for sailing. In 1973 he was a founding member of Neuse Sailing Association, named for the Neuse River that borders the town’s banks. Many of his abstract paintings relate to his passion for sailing and especially coastal living; they tend to be structured around an emphatic horizon line and often incorporate reflections. He also painted more representational images of marshes in watercolors as he battled Parkinson’s disease for the last 17 years of his life.