Background
Simmie Knox was born on August 18, 1935 in Aliceville, Alabama to Simmie Knox Senior, a carpenter and mechanic, and Amelia Knox.
Simmie Knox was born on August 18, 1935 in Aliceville, Alabama to Simmie Knox Senior, a carpenter and mechanic, and Amelia Knox.
He attended Central High School in Mobile. Subsequently Knox studied at Delaware State College while working in a textile factory.
He was the first black American artist to receive a presidential portrait commission. At age 13 he was hit in the eye by a baseball while playing a game, and it was suggested that drawing would aid his recovery. His segregated school did not have an art program, but the Catholic nuns who taught him recognized his talent and found someone to teach him.
Knox began his career teaching at the Bowie State College, Maryland and the Duke Ellington School of the s, Washington District of Columbia He painted still lifes and sold them on a market stall.
On leaving college abstract art was in vogue.
He took on portraiture when he moved to Washington District of Columbia in 1972. "With abstract painting I didn"t feel the challenge. The face is the most complicated thing there is.
The challenge is finding that thing, that makes it different from another face," he later said.
He subsequently painted notable figures such as Muhammad Ali, and Supreme Court Justices Thurgood Marshall and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, before coming to the attention of the White House. In 2000 he was selected to create a portrait of President Bill Clinton.
He became the first black American painter to paint an official portrait of an American president The paintings of Bill and Hillary Clinton took two years to complete, finished in 2002 and unveiled in June 2004, hanging in the White House"s East Wing.
As a professional artist Knox works from a small converted garage next to his home in Silver Spring, Maryland.
In 2004 he claimed to charge up to $60,000 for a portrait commission (though he wouldn"t reveal the fee for his presidential work). Knox has been described as "the unofficial portraitist for trailblazing African Americans", adding paintings to his portfolio of United States. Attorney General Eric Holder, Governor Andrew Cuomo and a sculpture of mayor of Baltimore, Clarence Burns. In 2013 a short film was created and shown about Knox"s life, by the Delaware Humanities Forum.
Gallery
Corcoran Gallery of, Washington District of Columbia, 1971 (Thirty-Second Biennial of Contemporary American Painting)
Citizens Bank Center, Wilmington, Delaware, January to March 2013 (solo show)
Mount Rainier ist Lofts, Mount Rainier, Maryland, August 2013 ("The of Justice: Honoring and Continuing a Movement for Equality through istic Expression") - group exhibition in protest at the 2012 murder of Trayvon Martin
Knox"s paintings are held in a number of public art collections, including the Maryland State Collection, Oklahoma State Capitol Collection, and the United States Senate.
Comedian Bill Cosby is credited with raising his profile in the 1990s when Knox was commissioned to paint 12 members of the Cosby family.