James Prosek

Background

James Prosek was born on March 23, 1975, in Stamford, Connecticut, United States to the family of Louis Prosek and Christina Robba Willinger.

Prosek's parents encouraged him to be creative. But as much as he encouraged Prosek's art he never encouraged Prosek to be an artist for a living. His father grew up in Brazil with a pragmatic Czech father who told him that life was about “not doing what you love to do but learning to love what you must do.” Both of his parents were immigrants - his mother was born in Prague - and they had turbulent childhoods. His father was a merchant marine and then a schoolteacher and they didn’t have a lot of money. His mother left when he was nine and he didn’t see her for a few years. But when he did start seeing her, she very much encouraged him to do what he loved in life.

Education

James Prosek graduated from Yale University in 1997. As an undergraduate at Yale University, he majored in English Literature and was a member of Manuscript Society.

Career

James Prosek is an artist and writer living in Easton, Connecticut. He is the author of many books, including Trout: An Illustrated History and Eels: An Exploration from New Zealand to the Sargasso, of the World’s Most Mysterious Fish. His latest book (Ocean Fishes, Rizzoli, 2012) is a collection of paintings of 35 Atlantic fishes, all of which were painted life-size based on individual specimens he traveled to see. Prosek has written for The New York Times and National Geographic Magazine and won a Peabody Award in 2003 for his documentary about traveling through England in the footsteps of Izaak Walton, the seventeenth-century author of The Compleat Angler. His paintings have been shown in galleries across the country, and he is cofounder, with Yvon Chouinard, of the conservation initiative World Trout.

Achievements

• Prosek has written for The New York Times and National Geographic Magazine and won a Peabody Award in 2003 for his documentary about traveling through England in the footsteps of Izaak Walton, the seventeenth-century author of The Compleat Angler. He co-founded a conservation initiative called World Trout in 2004 with Yvon Chouinard, the owner of Patagonia clothing company, which raises money for coldwater habitat conservation through the sale of T-shirts featuring trout paintings (Since the start of the program in 2005, the World Trout Initiative has given $2 million to over 200 fish conservation groups). His book Eels: An Exploration, from New Zealand to the Sargasso, of the World's Most Amazing and Mysterious Fish, published in September 2010 was a New York Times Book Review editor's choice, and is the subject of a documentary for PBS series "Nature" that aired in 2013.
  
  In autumn of 2012 Prosek was awarded the Gold Medal for Distinction in Natural History Art from the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Eels

    (Famous for his deeply informed, compulsively readable boo...)

    2010
  • Good Day's Fishing

    (The bestselling author of Trout and Fly-Fishing the 41st,...)

    2004
  • Fly-Fishing the 41st: From Connecticut to Mongolia and Home Again: A Fisherman's Odyssey eBook: James Prosek: Kindle Store

    (The New York Times has called James Prosek "the Audubon o...)

    2009
  • Trout of the World

    (In the rereleased edition of Trout of the World, fans of ...)

    2003
  • Go Fish: Fishing Journal

    (Hailed as "the Audubon of the fishing world" by the New Y...)

    2001
  • Joe and Me: An Education In Fishing And Friendship

    (When James Prosek was just fifteen, a ranger named Joe Ha...)

    2009
  • Trout: An Illustrated History

    (The trout of North America range from the Pacific to the ...)

    1996
  • James Prosek: Ocean Fishes

    (The captivating watercolors of James Prosek, the artist t...)

    2012
  • Early Love and Brook Trout

    (This is a beautiful book of Prosek's paintings of brookie...)

    2009
  • The Complete Angler: A Connecticut Yankee Follows in the Footsteps of Walton

    (James Prosek has been called "the Audubon of the fishing ...)

    2010
  • The Day My Mother Left

    (Jeremy's whole life changed the day his mother left. When...)

    2009
  • Tackle Box: Note Cards 2001

Membership

Prosek is a curatorial affiliate, as well as on the board (Leadership Council), of the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale, and a member of the advisory board of the Yale Institute for Biospheric Studies.

• Yale University

  Manuscript Society , United States

• Yale University

  Leadership Council of the Peabody Museum of Natural History , United States

• Yale Institute for Biospheric Studies , United States

Interests

• fishing

Connections

There is no information on James Prosek being married or having any children.

Father:

Louis Prosek

Mother:

Christina Robba Willinger

colleague:

Yvon Chouinard

References

• Contemporary Authors, Vol. 166 This volume of Contemporary Authors contains biographical information on approximately 300 modern writers.
  1998