Larry Zox Biography

United States, 1937 - 2006

Lawrence "Larry" Zox was an American painter and printmaker who is classified as an Abstract expressionist, Color Field painter and a Lyrical Abstractionist, although he did not readily use those categories for his work.

Zox was born in Des Moines, Iowa, but moved to New York City at an early age. He lived an artist's life, running in the circles of many prominent names in the art world. In recent years he had relocated to his second home in Colchester, Connecticut. Zox was considered an abstract artist, but more often he described himself as a colorist.

Zox received his education at Oklahoma University and Drake University. He studied with George Grosz at the Des Moines Art Center. He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and received grants from the National Council of the Arts and the Esther and Adolph Gottlieb Foundation. He was Artist-in Residence at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Dartmouth College, and Yale University.

His work has been exhibited in many one-person and group shows including the Whitney Museum of American Art (New York); the Museum of Modern Art (NY); Albright-Knox Art Gallery (Buffalo, New York); Art Institute of Chicago; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (NY).

Zox's work is represented in the following public collections: Empire State Plaza Collection, Albany; Dallas Museum of Fine Arts; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; Metropolitan Museum of Art (NY); Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (NY); and the Whitney Museum of American Art (NY).

He died, aged 69, from cancer and was survived by his second wife, the former Virginia King, his two children from his first marriage, and his brother-in law, the painter David R. Prentice among others.