William Trevor Cox was born in 1928 in County Cork, Ireland, to Protestant parents. His family moved frequently, and Trevor spent his childhood in many different towns throughout the south of Ireland. Because he belonged to the minority religious group, Trevor says he developed early on a sense of being on the "outside looking in." Despite his "outsider" status, however, Trevor described himself as a young man who was "very, very nationalistic, intensely Irish."

Trevor attended Trinity College in Dublin, where he earned a bachelor's degree in history. After his graduation in 1950, Trevor spent the next several years teaching history and art in Northern Ireland and in England. He also spent several years working as a copywriter for a London advertising agency, a job he did not enjoy. Around this time, he began to pursue work as a sculptor; he had first become interested in this art...