James Grant (artist)
Encyclopedia
James Edward Grant was a painter and sculptor most active from the late 1950s into the early 1970s. Best known for his sculptural work in plastics
, this work by no means defined him, but was rather a natural endpoint of an exploration into increased dimensionality—starting from abstract canvases, moving through collages and bas-reliefs until the work finally came off the wall in sculptural form.
, he went on to pursue his M.F.A. at the Jepson Art Institute
in Los Angeles, studying under Rico Lebrun
. In 1950 he accepted a teaching position at Pomona College
in Claremont, California
where he was Assistant Professor of Art for nine years. At about this time he married Nancy Parkford. During his tenure at Pomona he worked with many influential artists and art historians, including painters Karl Benjamin
and Frederick Hammersley
, as well as Peter Selz (who later went on to become Chief Curator of Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art
, New York) and Seymour Slive (Director of the Fogg Art Museum
, Harvard University
).
, Grant had solo exhibitions at the Pasadena Art Museum, Pomona College Museum of Art, and the University of California, Riverside
, and group exhibitions at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art
, the Oakland Museum of California
, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
.
where his paintings began to develop in texture—moving more towards collage work, using both paint and fabric. His stay was punctuated by a solo exhibition at the Galleria Pogliani in Rome.
, where his collage work continued. In 1963 he had a solo exhibition at the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum
. During the 1960s, he showed regularly at galleries and museums both in the Bay Area (Hansen Gallery) and New York (Bertha Schaefer Gallery and Grand Central Moderns
).
In the mid 1960s, his collages began to include polyester resin
which he applied in a painterly fashion to the canvas. Soon he began to cast the resin into large, textured bas-reliefs. His plastic work culminated in the development of large cast resin freestanding sculptures of geometric disks, tall spikes and subtly curved shapes which were highly polished.
In 1970, he had a retrospective at Mills College
in Oakland, California
documenting his transition in style from abstract canvases to collages to bas-reliefs and finally the freestanding sculptures.
In the 1970s, he worked on several commissioned works, many incorporating unique plastic and glass materials.
producing small watercolors that were cut into squares and reassembled into grids. He then took this format to a large scale, painting acrylic canvases which were also cut into squares and reassembled in works ranging from four to eight feet. This work continued into the 1990s.
Grant died in Stinson Beach in August, 1997. When the new Stinson Beach branch library opened in 1999, the opening show was of Grant's work. The art exhibit wall is named in his honor.
Plastics in art
With the 20th century came the use of plastics in art. In the latter half of the century, plastic making technology advanced so that it was feasible for artists to start using plastic as a medium....
, this work by no means defined him, but was rather a natural endpoint of an exploration into increased dimensionality—starting from abstract canvases, moving through collages and bas-reliefs until the work finally came off the wall in sculptural form.
Life and work
Early life and education
Grant was born in Los Angeles in 1924. After receiving his undergraduate degree in Engineering from the University of Southern CaliforniaUniversity of Southern California
The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...
, he went on to pursue his M.F.A. at the Jepson Art Institute
Jepson Art Institute
Jepson Art Institute, founded in Los Angeles in 1945 by artist Herbert Jepson, was an art school located at 2861 West 7th Street that flourished from 1947 to 1953 - becoming an important center for experimental figure drawing, art theory and printmaking. Prior to this, Jepson served as an...
in Los Angeles, studying under Rico Lebrun
Rico Lebrun
Rico Lebrun was an Italy-born, Italian-American painter and sculptor.-Biography :Lebrun was born on December 10, 1900 in Naples, Italy. His formal art education consisted of attending technical school and art classes at night, studying the Old Masters in museums, and assisting fresco painters...
. In 1950 he accepted a teaching position at Pomona College
Pomona College
Pomona College is a private, residential, liberal arts college in Claremont, California. Founded in 1887 in Pomona, California by a group of Congregationalists, the college moved to Claremont in 1889 to the site of a hotel, retaining its name. The school enrolls 1,548 students.The founding member...
in Claremont, California
Claremont, California
Claremont is a small affluent college town in eastern Los Angeles County, California, United States, about east of downtown Los Angeles at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains. The population as of the 2010 census is 34,926. Claremont is known for its seven higher-education institutions, its...
where he was Assistant Professor of Art for nine years. At about this time he married Nancy Parkford. During his tenure at Pomona he worked with many influential artists and art historians, including painters Karl Benjamin
Karl Benjamin
Karl Benjamin is an American painter of vibrant geometric abstractions who rose to fame in 1959 as one of four Los Angeles-based Abstract Classicists and subsequently produced a critically acclaimed body of work that explores a vast array of color relationships...
and Frederick Hammersley
Frederick Hammersley
Frederick Hammersley was a critically acclaimed American abstract painter whose participation in the landmark 1959 Four Abstract Classicists exhibit secured his place in art history.-Early years:...
, as well as Peter Selz (who later went on to become Chief Curator of Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
, New York) and Seymour Slive (Director of the Fogg Art Museum
Fogg Art Museum
The Fogg Museum, opened to the public in 1896, is the oldest of Harvard University's art museums. The Fogg joins the Busch-Reisinger Museum and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum as part of the Harvard Art Museums....
, Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
).
Southern California
While working in Southern CaliforniaSouthern California
Southern California is a megaregion, or megapolitan area, in the southern area of the U.S. state of California. Large urban areas include Greater Los Angeles and Greater San Diego. The urban area stretches along the coast from Ventura through the Southland and Inland Empire to San Diego...
, Grant had solo exhibitions at the Pasadena Art Museum, Pomona College Museum of Art, and the University of California, Riverside
University of California, Riverside
The University of California, Riverside, commonly known as UCR or UC Riverside, is a public research university and one of the ten general campuses of the University of California system. UCR is consistently ranked as one of the most ethnically and economically diverse universities in the United...
, and group exhibitions at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is an art museum in Los Angeles, California. It is located on Wilshire Boulevard along Museum Row in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles, adjacent to the George C. Page Museum and La Brea Tar Pits....
, the Oakland Museum of California
Oakland Museum of California
Oakland Museum of California or Oakland Museum is a museum dedicated to the art, history, and natural science of California located in Oakland, California....
, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is a modern art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art and was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th century art...
.
Rome
After Pomona, Grant enjoyed a two year stay in RomeRome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
where his paintings began to develop in texture—moving more towards collage work, using both paint and fabric. His stay was punctuated by a solo exhibition at the Galleria Pogliani in Rome.
San Francisco
Upon returning to the United States in 1962, Grant settled in San FranciscoSan Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
, where his collage work continued. In 1963 he had a solo exhibition at the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum
M. H. de Young Memorial Museum
The M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, commonly called simply the de Young Museum, is a fine arts museum located in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. It is named for early San Francisco newspaperman M. H...
. During the 1960s, he showed regularly at galleries and museums both in the Bay Area (Hansen Gallery) and New York (Bertha Schaefer Gallery and Grand Central Moderns
Grand Central Art Galleries
The Grand Central Art Galleries were the exhibition and administrative space of the nonprofit Painters and Sculptors Gallery Association, an artists' cooperative established in 1922 by Walter Leighton Clark together with John Singer Sargent, Edmund Greacen, and others...
).
In the mid 1960s, his collages began to include polyester resin
Polyester resin
Polyester resins are unsaturated resins formed by the reaction of dibasic organic acids and polyhydric alcohols. Polyester resins are used in sheet moulding compound, bulk moulding compound and the toner of laser printers...
which he applied in a painterly fashion to the canvas. Soon he began to cast the resin into large, textured bas-reliefs. His plastic work culminated in the development of large cast resin freestanding sculptures of geometric disks, tall spikes and subtly curved shapes which were highly polished.
In 1970, he had a retrospective at Mills College
Mills College
Mills College is an independent liberal arts women's college founded in 1852 that offers bachelor's degrees to women and graduate degrees and certificates to women and men. Located in Oakland, California, Mills was the first women's college west of the Rockies. The institution was initially founded...
in Oakland, California
Oakland, California
Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...
documenting his transition in style from abstract canvases to collages to bas-reliefs and finally the freestanding sculptures.
In the 1970s, he worked on several commissioned works, many incorporating unique plastic and glass materials.
Stinson Beach
After a break from art during the late 1970s, he returned to painting in the early 1980s at his studio in Stinson Beach, CaliforniaStinson Beach, California
Stinson Beach is a census-designated place in Marin County, California, on the west coast of the United States. Stinson Beach is located east-southeast of Bolinas, at an elevation of 26 feet . The population of the Stinson Beach CDP was 632 at the 2010 census.Stinson Beach is about a 35-minute...
producing small watercolors that were cut into squares and reassembled into grids. He then took this format to a large scale, painting acrylic canvases which were also cut into squares and reassembled in works ranging from four to eight feet. This work continued into the 1990s.
Grant died in Stinson Beach in August, 1997. When the new Stinson Beach branch library opened in 1999, the opening show was of Grant's work. The art exhibit wall is named in his honor.
2008
- de Saisset Museum, Santa Clara University, CA, Selections from the Anderson Collection: The 1960s
2004
- Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA, San Francisco and the Second Wave: The Blair Collection of Abstract Expressionism
1995
- Triton Museum of Art, Santa Clara, CA, A Bay Area Connection: Works from the Anderson Collection
1971
- University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, Contemporary American Painting and Sculpture
- Stanford Art Gallery, Palo Alto, CA, West Coast Art
- Oakland Art Museum, Oakland, CA, Pierres de Fantasie
1970
- Mills College Art Gallery
- Berkeley Art Gallery
- Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, NE, Looking West
1969
- Seligman Gallery, Seattle, WA
- University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, Contemporary American Painting and Sculpture
- Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, PA, Plastics: New Art
1968
- Raymond College, University of the Pacific
- Museum of Contemporary Crafts, New York, Plastic as Plastic
- Hansen Gallery, San Francisco, CA, Recent Developments in Plastic
- Crocker Art Gallery, Sacramento, CA, West Coast '68, Painters and Sculptors
1967
- Hansen Gallery, San Francisco, CA, Plastics West Coast
- University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, Contemporary American Painting and Sculpture
1966
- Hansen Gallery, San Francisco
- Mead Corporation, Art Across America
- Crocker Art Gallery, Sacramento, CA, ’66 Painters and Sculptors
- 1966 San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco, CA, San Francisco Art Institute 85th Annual Exhibition
1963
- M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco
- Grand Central Moderns, New York
- Mary Washington College of the University of Virginia
1958
- Pomona College, Claremont, CA
- University of California at Riverside
- Humboldt State College
- San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco, CA, San Francisco Art Institute 77th Annual Painting and Sculpture Exhibition
Public collections
- San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
- Oakland Museum
- Pasadena Museum
- Pomona College Museum of Art
- Claremont Museum of Art
- Mary Washington College of the University of Virginia
- Raymond College of the University of the Pacific
- City College of San Francisco