Coze built this 17-foot-tall sculpture, which still stands at Town & Country Shopping Center. Photo by nicole roegner

What remains offers a glimpse into Coze’s public portfolio and an era of growth and prosperity in Phoenix.
“He’s responsible for the look and feel of Phoenix,” says local architecture critic Walt Lockley, who has devoted an entire Website to Coze at waltlockley.com/coze/coze-
main.htm. “It’s a shame to me that people don’t know his name.”
Coze, a well-known artist in 1930s France, moved to the United States during the Depression and ultimately to Phoenix in the 1950s. Here, he set up an art studio and school and also became the state’s French Consul. Over the course of his career, abroad and in the U.S., Coze brought his genius to book writing, photography, producing and directing.
He was intrigued by Native Americans and the West as a child and became a passionate student of both as an adult, says Kay Coze, who married the artist in 1959.
One of Paul Coze’s earliest commissions in Phoenix, completed in the 1950s, remains today though it has been altered greatly. Coze created a 17-foot-tall bronze and stained glass Phoenix bird for the Town & Country Shopping Center near Camelback Road and 20th Street. At some point, the bird was moved and put on a new pedestal, drawing Coze’s ire. After he died, the sculpture was painted white.