Dox Thrash -
WPA Printmaker
& Inventor of the Carborundum Print Process
(1893-1965)
1893 - Born on March 22, 1893 near Griffin, GA to
Gus and Ophelia Thrash.
1903 - Thrash leaves school after completing fourth
grade.
1908 - Dox left Georgia at age 15 to go "hoboing"
and traveled from Georgia up to Chicago.
1911 - Thrash arrives in Chicago.
1914 - Thrash enrolls at the Art Institute of Chicago
where he studied art from 1914 to 1923 except for 11/2 years spent fighting
in WWI.
1917 - He served in the US Army from 1917-1918 in
France. Thrash was gassed and wounded in a battle on the last day of the
war, November 11, 1918.
1919 - Thrash returns to the US and tours the "Plantation
Circuit" with his vaudeville act before resuming his studies at the
Art Institute of Chicago.
1923 - He finishes his studies at the AIC.
1924 - Thrash begins another cross-country trip but
stays in Philadelphia (1925).
Late 1920s - He is befriended by Samuel Reading, who
runs a printing business in West Philadelphia, and learns the art of printmaking.
1937 - Thrash joins the Philadelphia Fine Print Workshop,
a division of the Federal Art Project. He receives a WPA commission for
a nursery rhyme mural in the children's ward of Mercy Hospital (now destroyed),
Philadelphia, PA.
1940 - He is named the"inventor of the carborundum
print process" in various news article.
1945 - With his reputation as an artist was at its
peak, Thrash is employed as a house painter with the Philadelphia Housing
Authority.
1951 - He travels through Europe.
1958 - Thrash is featured in the "Federal Art
Project Twenty Years After" exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of
Art.
1958 - He retires from the Philadelphia Housing Authority.
1965 - Dox Thrash dies on April 19, 1965 from a heart
attack after judging a children's poster contest. He is buried in the US
National Cemetery, Beverly, NJ.