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Frederic James (1915–1985) was an American painter who specialized in watercolors. He was associated with theRegionalist art movement.
Frederic James was born inKansas City, Missouri, in 1915. His father was master of theSanta Fe Railroad yards. James showed an early talent for painting, and in 1934, theNelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City accepted one of his watercolors for their Midwestern Exhibition. James attended theUniversity of Michigan and majored in architecture. Upon his graduation, he was awarded an architecture scholarship to theCranbrook Academy of Art, where he was close friends withEero Saarinen,Ralph Rapson, andCharles and Ray Eames. Working in a partnership with Saarinen and Rapson, he won a national competition, sponsored by theMuseum of Modern Art, to design a national theater inWilliamsburg, Virginia, beating out, among others,Philip S. Goodwin andEdward Durrell Stone. Despite his talent, architecture was not James' passion, and the only building he ever designed and built was his home in Kansas City.
In 1939, he returned to Kansas City and dedicated himself to becoming a painter. That year, he won the watercolor prize competition at theKansas City Art Institute. His career quickly gained momentum. In 1940, he had a piece accepted for the International Exhibition of Watercolors at theArt Institute of Chicago and won the Friends of Art Purchase Prize in the Midwestern Artists Exhibition of the Kansas City Art Institute. The Art Institute immediately hired him to teach watercolor classes, and James began a close association with fellow teacher and famed Regionalist artistThomas Hart Benton. Benton selected 15 of James’ watercolors to be included in a widely publicized exhibition of his students’ work that was held at theAssociated American Artists Gallery inNew York City in November 1940.
James’ art career was put on hold by World War II. He enlisted and was assigned first toFort Leonard Wood and later to Brazil, never seeing the European or Pacific Theaters of War. Following the war, James returned to Kansas City and resumed his painting and teaching career at the Art Institute. In 1947, he married Diana Hearne. James had vacationed atMartha's Vineyard with Benton’s family for a few years, and soon purchased a second home on Martha's Vineyard as well. He also gave up his teaching position to concentrate on painting, and his reputation continued to expand, winning the Purchase Award at the Mid-America Annual Art Show in 1951 and holding a well-received one-man show at the Associated American Artists Gallery in New York in 1952. In 1954, theNelson-Atkins Museum of Art held an exhibition of his work in their main loan gallery. After the mid-1950s, James lost interest in promoting his work on a national stage, but he continued his prolific output, producing many watercolors of rural Missouri and Kansas, especially theFlint Hills of Kansas. In addition to his watercolors, James did murals for the Trinity Lutheran Church in Mission, Kansas; the Overland Park State Bank, and the Kansas and Consumer's Coop Association. He also completed a wild flower series of prints of theNew York Botanical Garden. He died in 1985.
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