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12 Facts About Raymond Coxon

1.

Raymond Coxon enrolled at the Leeds School of Art, the Royal College of Art, and became a teacher in the Richmond School of Art.

2.

When he completed his schooling, at the local Leek High School, Raymond Coxon joined the British Army.

3.

Raymond Coxon applied to join the Artists Rifles but was rejected and joined the cavalry section of the Machine Gun Corps with whom he served, and fought, in Egypt and Palestine throughout World War I While abroad he painted miniatures in watercolours which he sent home to his family.

4.

In 1922 Moore and Raymond Coxon visited France and met a number of artists there, including Pierre Bonnard and Aristide Maillol.

5.

Raymond Coxon continued his studies in London at the Royal College of Art between 1921 and 1925 under Sir William Rothenstein.

6.

Raymond Coxon took a teaching post at the Richmond School of Art in 1925 and in 1926 he married Edna Ginesi, with Moore acting as his best-man.

7.

Raymond Coxon became a member of the London Group in 1931 and of the Chiswick Group in 1938.

8.

Early in World War II, Raymond Coxon offered his services to the War Artists' Advisory Committee, WAAC, and in particular volunteered to return to Palestine as a war artist.

9.

That offer was refused but WAAC commissioned Raymond Coxon to produce some paintings of Army subjects in Britain, after which they purchased several other pieces from him.

10.

Independently of WAAC, Raymond Coxon received commissions from the Royal Navy and Army that saw him spend time on a corvette on convoy duty, join a river patrol on the Thames and witness parachutists making training jumps.

11.

Raymond Coxon produced some fine portraits during the war, notably of the Victoria Cross recipient Pip Gardner and a portrait of his own wife in her ambulance service uniform.

12.

Raymond Coxon's paintings became more abstract and less representational but the main theme of his work remained, as it had been in the 1930s, the depiction of nature and of landscapes.