Wilcox is described as the "Dean of Cleveland School painters,"[1] though some sources give this appellation to Henry Keller or Frederick Gottwald.

[2] In 1906 Wilcox enrolled in the Cleveland School of Art under the tutelage of Gottwald, Keller, Louis Rorimer, Horace Potter, and Herman Matzen.

Keller called them "mere colored drawings" and expressed the view that Wilcox should have paid attention to Post-Impressionism while in France.

Among his students were Lawrence Edwin Blazey, Carl Gaertner, Paul Travis, Charles E. Burchfield, and Victor Schreckengost.

Sketching his way through the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany in the final days of the Belle Époque, he found himself in Munich when World War I broke out.

[8] In 1918 he joined the Cleveland Society of Artists, a conservative counter to the Bohemian Kokoon Arts Club to which Wilcox also belonged,[3][9] and would later serve as its president.

He also began teaching night school at the John Huntington Polytechnic Institute at this time, and taught briefly during his retirement at Baldwin-Wallace College.

[3][5]Wilcox described having been hired by Matzen to draw the frieze of figures for the base of the Tom L. Johnson statue on the Cleveland public square, unveiled in 1915.

In the 1930s, Cleveland printmarker Kálmán Kubinyi discovered two bushels of Wilcox etchings from which is produced a small edition.

On trips to Boothbay, Maine with Otto Ege shortly after World War I, Wilcox developed his pure watercolor skills.

[3][13]Wilcox painted many outdoor scenes from trips to the Gaspé Peninsula in Quebec, Canada, the deep south, the Rocky Mountains, and particularly Ohio.

From his summers at Berlin Heights and throughout his career, Wilcox frequently painted scenes of Ohio, Clevelend, and especially Brecksville.

[19] In retirement, Wilcox painted a series dubbed "Little-Big" by Norman Kent, editor of American Artist.

The article focuses on the works and artistic style of Frank N. Wilcox, a watercolor painter based in Cleveland, Ohio.

He received numerous awards, including the Penton Medal for as The Omnibus, Paris (1920), Fish Tug on Lake Erie (1921), Blacksmith Shop (1922), and The Gravel Pit (1922).

[13][23] The exhibition included works from the Wilcox Estate, and was presented at Wolfs Gallery in Cleveland from September 19 through November 30, 2019.

Wilcox came from a large family with New England ancestry on both sides, all of whom played a significant role in settling Ohio's Western Reserve.

A Brush with Light: Watercolor Painters of Northeast Ohio was an exhibition featuring works by 25 Cleveland School artists, including Wilcox.

Organized by the Cleveland Artists Foundation (now ARTneo), the exhibit ran from April 23 through July 10, 1999 at the Ohio Arts Council's Riffe Gallery.