Background
James Brooks was born on October 18, 1906, in St. Louis, Missouri, United States, into the family of William R. Brooks and Abigail Williamson.
James Brooks was born on October 18, 1906, in St. Louis, Missouri, United States, into the family of William R. Brooks and Abigail Williamson.
James Brooks attended Southern Methodist University and the Dallas Art Institute and moved to New York in 1927 where he attended night classes at the Art Students League.
In 1936 James Brooks joined the Federal Art Project where he would paint a 235-foot mural entitled "Flight" around the rotunda of the Marine Air Terminal at La Guardia Airport. The mural was painted over by the Port Authority in the 1950s but was restored in 1980. Brooks was a friend of Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner and would move into Pollock's Greenwich Village apartment at 46 East 8th Street after Pollock and Krasner moved to Springs, New York in East Hampton, New York.
In 1947 he married artist Charlotte Park. They also moved to East Hampton in 1949 creating a studio at Rocky Point in Montauk, New York. The Montauk studio and several of Brooks paintings were destroyed in Hurricane Carol with the studio being blown off a hill in 1954. Brooks then had their house which was not damaged towed by barge across to Springs where it was located on an 11-acre parcel on Neck Path close to Pollock's home.
Considered a first generation abstract expressionist painter, Brooks was among the first abstract expressionists to use staining as an important technique. According to art critic Carter Ratcliff, "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. His work was displayed in the 9th Street Art Exhibition in 1951. Over the following decades, his works evolved to become more atmospheric, utilizing the accidental bleeds of enamel paint through the canvas weave as a catalyst for mark making. Brooks died on March 9, 1992 in East Hampton.
Public collections holding works by James Brooks include: The Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller Empire State Plaza Art Collection (Albany), Courtauld Institute of Art (London), the Dallas Museum of Art (Dallas), the Museum of Modern Art (New York), the Harvard University Art Museums, the Whitney Museum of American Art (New York), the Honolulu Museum of Art, the Indianapolis Museum of Art (Indianapolis), the Sheldon Art Gallery (Lincoln), the Smithsonian American Art Museum (Washington), the Tate Gallery (London) and the Walker Art Center (Minneapolis). His works were also exhibited by galleries including the Anita Shapolsky Gallery in New York City, the Peridot Gallery in New York, and Washburn Gallery in New York.
Quinlan
Number 13
Igor S.
Gudrun
Merrygandering
Yarsboro
Agway
Concord
Panah
Judy
Aldon
Leen
Nalon
K-1952
Huron
Brandon
Haley
Untitled (Blue Abstraction)
Boon
Untitled
Gralee
Untitled
#37
Bowditch
Baid
Quand
Eastern
Laney
Hover
Khrog
Untitled
Ehr
Untitled (Abstraction)
Acton
Ipswich
Aamo
Untitled (Self Portrait)
Erberon
Orrib
James discovered that the glue paste he used to attach his paper to canvas accidentally bled through to the side with his images. He started to exploit this staining technique, moving beyond the more rigid format of his Cubist-inspired compositions. In addition, he relied more heavily on automatism and free brushwork, creating images that showed the influence of Pollock’s action painting methods.
James Brooks Married Mary MacDonald in 1938, but they broke up. On December 22, 1947 he married artist Charlotte Park.