The below biographical document was prepared by Paul Coze in May, 1965, and was provided by Kay Coze. It is authoritative but not complete. It doesn't capture his activity through 1974, which includes at least two major public art pieces in Phoenix. Based on other sources it neglects or understates other aspects of his work.

But it's plenty, Paul Coze was nothing if not busy, and the bits on lion-taming, the Fratellini brothers, and ESP among Native Americans are welcome news.

May, 1965
4040 East Elm
Phoenix, Arizona

BIOGRAPHY, PAUL COZE

BACKGROUND

Paul Coze was born July 29, 1903, in Beyrouth, then in Syria, now capital of Lebanon. His father was a French engineer whose family, Coze de la Cressonniere, abandoned its title with the French Revolution and turned to medicine and engineering. His mother was a Russian royal princess whose family ruled Yugoslavia for three hundred years. Egypt was the site of Paul Coze's earliest education, which was continued in Paris during World War I at the Lycee Janson de Sailly. At sixteen he decided to become a professional artist. For the first four years of his art education he was a student of "L'Ecole Nationale des Arts Decoratifs." Then under the philosopher Wladimir Weidle, he studied history and philosophy for ten years, while his art education continued under the direction of the Italian master Jacques F. Gonin (oil painting and its techniques). Paul Coze was drafted into the French Army of Occupation and sent to Mainz, Germany after the First World War.

CIVIC WORK

In 1912, while wintering in Egypt, Paul Coze and his brother Marcel became Boy Scouts. The war caught them in France, where they started the first Paris Troop of Catholic Boy Scouts, from which grew the National Association. Ultimately Paul Coze became National Commissioner of the French Boy Scouts and later Assistant International Commissioner. He wrote several Boy Scout Handbooks, and for sixteen years wrote with Lucian Goualle Pilba (sp?), the annual Boy Scout agenda. He was also editor-in-chief of "Scout de France," the Boy Scout's monthly magazine, for seven years.

Paul Coze has been the head of several good-will tours to the United States on behalf of French youth and the French Government. He has been French Consul for Arizona since 1951.

ANTHROPOLOGIST AND AUTHOR

The American Indian has interested Paul Coze since his childhood. In order to do the research for his first book, Mœurs et histoire des Peaux-Rouges (Manners and History of the American Indian), he learned English, for some of the essential books were American. After six years of work this book, written in collaboration with Rene Thevenin, was published in 1928. This book was immediately crowned by L'Academie Francaise and is still in print today. In 1930 Paul Coze headed an expedition sponsored by the Paris Museum of Natural History which studied Indians in North Saskatchewan and Alberta. The expedition brought back approximately one thousand artifact, records of Indian songs, and a movie on the lives of the Indians. In pursuing his work as an anthropologist Paul Coze founded the Wakanda Club to further the study of the American Indian in France. This Club's main function was the presentation of lectures, studies, and movies on the American Indian, but also had theatrical productions, including authentic Indian dances, and a roping Club.

Paul Coze has written several books since Mœurs et histoire des Peaux-Rouges on different aspects of Indian life, as well as one on rodeos. His last book, L'Oiseau-Tonnerre, deals with Extrasensory Perception among Southwestern Indians. This aspect of Indian life led him to experiment in astrology.

For several years after 1936 Paul Coze spent his summers on Indian reservations throughout the United States, mainly in Arizona and New Mexico. In 1936 he organized an exhibit of the American Indian modern painters for the new Musee de l'Homme. In recognition of his work among the Indians, Paul Coze has been made a member of seven different Indian tribes.

Paul Coze's interest is in the Southwest as well as in the Indian, Rodeos, cowboys, and the tricks which can be performed with a lasso have fascinated him. The Paris Roping Club is a part of the Wakanda Club which he started, besides which, he originated in Arizona and throughout the United States the polo-like game of "Cholla".

THEATRE ARTS

Paul Coze has directed pageants in the United States, France, and in England. For the Boy Scouts Jamboreein Birkenhead, England in 1929 he directed the Life of Joan of Arc pageant, with a cast of twenty-five hundred. He directed many pageants and shows for the "Scouts de France."

Hundreds of various performances of the Paris Wakanda Club in France, England and Belgium were directed by Paul Coze, performances which adapted Indian dances to the stage.

In 1939 "Desert Song," an American Indian ballet-drama (with a cast of 250) was presented by Paul Coze for the United States Indian School, Phoenix, Arizona.

In 1957 the annual Knickerbocker Ball, held at the Waldorf Astoria in New York, was a project of Paul Coze's. He directed the entertainment and the decorations, the former including his "Lomatawi," ballet-drama with thirty-five Southwest Indians.

For ten years Paul Coze produced and directed the Scottsdale "Miracle of the Roses," 1953-1963. In 1955 he had a television program "Open Your Eyes" at KTVK.

Paul Coze directed "Peaux-Rouges d'Hier et d'Aujourd'hui" in France in 1930, which was an educational motion picture. In 1932 he produced two musical studies, "Synchroscopie," which consisted of animated geometric designs and patterns which move on the screen to music. He co-directed "Coeurs Heroiques" in 1927, a French picture based on a Boy Scout story. Later, in 1941, he directed "He Went to Camp" for the Roosevelt Council in Phoenix, Arizona. Paul Coze was technical director for Uncertain Glory, a Robert Buckner production at Warner Brothers. He was also technical director for Universal's "Rogue's Regiment" and the 20th-Century Fox movie "The Razor's Edge", produced by Darryl F. Zanuck.

In Hollywood, in 1939, Paul Coze, with Charles Boyer, originated the French Research Foundation, for the purpose of improving the authenticity in movies on French subjects.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Paul Coze has done photography work for the "French Line", "Air France", the Swedish Government Tourist Bureau, Madison Square Garden Rodeo, and Camelback Inn, Phoenix, Arizona. Paul Coze's photography has also appeared in Arizona Highways Magazine and National Geographic Magazine.

NEWSPAPER WORK

"L'Illustration" employed Paul Coze as roving reporter and artist, while he also wrote for the Illustrated London News, the Tatler, Travel Magazine, and Rodeo Magazine (Madison Square Garden, New York). He was reporter for "Le Jour", "Le Petit Parisian", "Pair Soir", etc. He was also a writer and illustrator for "Les Enfants de France."

Lion, tiger, and panther taming have interested Paul Coze, and in Paris he once won the Amateur Panther Taming Contest. After this he was sent on a newspaper assignment to India (1937) with Florian Laurent to capture live panthers and tigers and where he also caught typhoid fever.

HOBBIES

Paul Coze enjoys cooking, which is his principal hobby.

Paul Coze was one of the only three students the Fratellini brothers, world-famous European-style clowns, ever had. For years, as an amateur, he brought laughter to European children.

AWARDS

Paul Coe was made "Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur" in 1954 and "Chevalier de l'Ordre de Merite Touristique" in 1963. One of his achievements was the twinning of Phoenix, Arizona with Orange, France.

ARTIST

Paul Coze is primarily an artist. His first two studios were in Paris, in Montmartre and Montparnasse. His paintings were exhibited at the "Societe des Artistes Independents", "Societe des Artists Animaliers", "Societe des Artistes Decorateurs", and "Societe des Paintres et Sculpteurs de Chevaux". He has exhibited paintings at the Paris "Salon", and there his work received the Silver Medal.

Paul Coze moved his studio to Pasadena, California in 1942, where he was a founder of Pasadena's Artists' Association and the annual Art Fair. In Pasadena he had several one-man shows, lectured, and taught school. His Studio Workshop has trained thousands of students in varied techniques, much in the Paris Beaux Arts Atelier manner. In California he taught at the Pasadena Art Museum as well as in his own studio. At that time he worked for two years to paint a reconstruction on the life of prehistoric Southwest Indians for the National Parks and Monuments.

In 1951 he opened his studio in Phoenix, Arizona, at 4040 East Elm Street. While in Phoenix he has painted the mural for the Mayer-Heard Building, the mural for the Sky Harbor Airport, the Stations of the Cross for St. Thomas the Apostle Parish, the mural in the new Phoenix City Council Chamber, worked in his studio doing the murals for the new Prescott City Building, and the mural in the new Arizona Title Building. 1965- Large Murals and designs for Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum.

Paul Coze's paintings hang in the Heard Museum, Phoenix, Arizona, in the Southwest Museum, Los Angeles, California, in the Victoria Museum, Ottawa, Canada, in twelve other museums in North America, and a Diorama for Heard Museum, Phoenix, Arizona.