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Irving Resnikoff (aka C. J. Fox) does not have an image.
Irving Resnikoff
(New York, Ny, 1896 - 1988)
C.J. Fox only existed as the pseudonym of businessman Leo Fox, who used the name Charles J. to solicit prime artistic commissions, worth thousands of dollars, for decades. Fox paid Russian-born artist Irving Resnikoff a minute fraction of the commissions to paint the images for him from photographs; Resnikoff never met any of the powerful and famous figures he painted. While Resnikoff toiled away in a studio, Fox took credit for the work at a number of Capitol Hill portrait unveilings.
Resnikoff’s behind-the-scenes role was revealed in 1978, when the IRS presented Fox with a bill for back taxes. In an affidavit, Resnikoff said that he had been employed as the artist behind the Fox name for 40 years, producing 58 paintings in one year alone.
Trained in Cubist art in St. Petersburg, Resnikoff lived much of his life in obscurity. While his abstract works never garnered much attention, hundreds of formal portraits by his hand, signed “C. J. Fox,” exist in collections across America.
- Excerpt from House of Representatives
