James Brooks (October 18, 1906 – March 9, 1992) was an American muralist, abstract painter and winner of the Logan Medal of the Arts. Brooks was a friend of Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner on Eastern Long Island. In 1947 he married artist Charlotte Park. Considered a first generation abstract expressionist painter, Brooks was amongst the first abstract expressionists to use staining as an important technique. According to Carter Ratcliff[1] "His concern has always been to create painterly accidents of the kind that allow buried personal meanings to take on visibility." In his paintings from the late 1940s Brooks began to dilute his oil paint in order to stain the mostly raw canvas. These works often combined calligraphy and abstract shapes. Brooks had his first one-man exhibition of his abstract expressionist paintings in 1949 at the Peridot Gallery in New York. The Courtauld Institute of Art (London), the Dallas Museum of Art (Dallas, Texas), the Harvard University Art Museums, the Honolulu Academy of Arts, the Indianapolis Museum of Art (Indianapolis, Indiana), the Sheldon Art Gallery (Lincoln, Nebraska), the Smithsonian American Art Museum (Washington D.C.), the Tate Gallery (London) and the Walker Art Center (Minneapolis, Minnesota) are among the public collections holding work by James Brooks.
Studied
* 1923-1926: Southern Methodist University; Dallas Art Institute and with Martha Simkins.
* 1927-1930: The Art Students League of New York, New York City; night classes with Kimon Nicolaides and Boardman Robinson.
Brooks worked as a commercial letterer and display artist to support himself.
Participated in the Federal Art Project (WPA)
1936-1942 Brooks executed murals: Queens Public Library (since demolished), New York; Marine Art Terminal, La Guardia Airport, Flight (restored 1980), NY and Post Office, Little Falls, New Jersey.
Teaching positions
* 1947-1948: Columbia University, New York
* 1948-1955: Pratt Institute
* 1955-1960: Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut
* 1963: Artist-in-residence at the American Academy, Rome, Italy
* 1965-1967: New College, Sarasota, Florida
* 1966: Miami Beach Art Center, Miami Beach, Florida
* 1966-1969: Queens College, New York
* 1971-1972: University of Pennsylvania
* 1975: Cooper Union, New York City
References
1. ^ Art International, February, 1973. pp 38-39
Smithsonian Institution Research Information System; Archival, Manuscript and Photographic Collections, James Brooks
Books
* "James Brooks (1906 -1992): Mounted Policeman (New York Policeman)". Mark Borghi Fine Art Inc. http://borghi.org/american/brooks.html. Retrieved June 8, 2005.
Article
* Sandler, Irving H. "James Brooks and the abstract inscape", ARTnews (New York: Art Foundation, 1963) OCLC: 54034429
Artist from USA
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/ ", Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License
