Guy Cobb

• Name — Guy Cobb • Birth Name — Guy Franke Cobb • Born — 27 October 1963 • Birthplace — St. Louis, Missouri, United States • Occupation — Artist • Children — 2 - Elise Cobb, Jack Cobb • Education — University of Mississippi (dropped out in 1983)

In 1983 Cobb left the University of Mississippi to join his older brother, Ty Cobb, as a co-founder of an acrobatic basketball show called the Bud Light Daredevils. The group invented the sport of acrobatic basketball and entertained audiences at NBA and college basketball games in North America, Europe, Asia, Israel and Australia. • Illustration — "Thorn Painting" by Cobb By 1990 Cobb had relocated to rural Fair Grove, Missouri where he was inspired by a documentary of Jackson Pollock and began working with sheet metal and locust tree thorns. His first painting titled, Down in the Valley of Rural Violence was an examination of the 1987 James Schnick massacre at Elkland, Missouri. In 1993 Cobb moved to Memphis and began painting again. His work was first exhibited in the lobby of the Memphis Commercial Appeal's newspaper office. Cobb donated paintings to raise funds for WKNO Public Television and the Memphis Orpheum Theater and other works to hospitals and mental institutions. Cobb has donated more than 60 paintings to not-for-profit organizations and museums throughout the region. In 2003 Cobb was invited to Nashville to view his paintings on permanent display at the Tennessee State Capitol building and the Tennessee State Museum. • Illustration — Cobb's "Braille painting" at Christian Brothers University in 2006.

At his 2006 exhibit at Christian Brothers University, Cobb was introduced to Naseeb Shaheen, a Palestinian-American Professor at the University of Memphis. From this meeting Cobb would eventually donate two of his paintings to the Birzeit University Art Museum which Shaheen had helped to finance its construction.