Walter Cox

1866-1930

European Artist

Born in England, Walter Cox trained in Paris and then settled in San Francisco in 1904 and painted many landscapes of which the ones completed before 1906 were lost in the earthquake. By the 1920s, he had moved to New York where he became primarily a portraitist, painting notables of the day such as Warren G. Harding, Chief Justices, and members of the British Nobility. An early draft for the inscription on the plaque next to Walter Cox’s statue on the Clemson University campus reads: The epitome of what love and loyalty for Clemson are all about Forever. Ultimately, a more biographically detailed narrative was chosen for the plaque, but one would be hard pressed to find a more fitting description of Walter Cox than as a man who represents timeless love and loyalty for Clemson, its students and alumni. For more than 65 years spanning two centuries, Walter Cox has been a part of Clemson. He’s done everything from clear land for the football stadium to serve as the school’s president. Most importantly, he has touched the lives of tens of thousands of Clemson students, from the uniform-wearing cadets of the 1930s and ’40s to the baggy-pants-and-backward-cap generation of today. Cox’s statue sits on a bench in a plaza dedicated to him in 1998. The message on a crumpled note someone left with the statue suggests that even when cast in bronze, Walter Cox exudes care and kindness. It reads: "Thank you for letting me talk with you."