COX, CHARLES HUDSON (1829-1901). Charles Hudson Cox, businessman and artist, was born at Liverpool, England, in 1829. In 1889 he immigrated to Waco, Texas, as a cotton buyer and continued to develop his considerable talent as an artist. He was soon persuaded to teach a class in watercolor painting, which was eagerly accepted by the young ladies of the city, and which he continued for a decade. Finding charm and inspiration from the hillsides and wildflowers of the Bosque Valley, Cox made these the subjects of most of his Texas paintings, which were usually small and signed C. H. Cox. In 1901 he was instrumental in organizing the Waco Art League, which is still in existence today. That same year he became seriously ill. At his doctor's recommendation he undertook a trip to the mountains of Colorado; but instead of improving, he died there, at Boulder, on August 7, 1901. His body was returned to Waco and buried in Oakwood Cemetery. The newspaper obituary records that the funeral was attended by a son, Edward L. Cox, of Galveston. In 1983 the Historic Waco Foundation officially dedicated a room in the restored C. C. McCulloch Mansion as the C. H. Cox Gallery, where about twenty of Cox's nostalgic paintings are on permanent exhibit.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Waco Times-Herald, August 26, 1901. Waco Art League, Minutes.

Roger N. Conger