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wildbrush's art.to.day |
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BROOKS James, born 1906, St. Louis - 1992. American painter. |
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| Attended
Southern Methodist University, where he majored in art. |
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| 1926 | Studied
at the Dallas Art Institute before moving to New York City |
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| 1930 | His
work at this time was in the social realist genre, showing the 1930's
preoccupation with architectural decay and the desolation of the
American scene. |
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| 1945-49 | After
WWII, Brooks returned to New York where he met or renewed contact with
many of the avant-garde painters. Working under the influence of
Picasso's and Braque's cubism, he set himself to 'learning how to paint
again'. Slowly his work moved from realism to a rebirth in abstraction. |
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| 1949 | His
first one-man show occurred in 1949 - 'thinly painted on unsized canvas
and closely related in style to Pollock's open, dripped paintings, but
more measured and controlled in rhythmic phrase.' |
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| In
the ensuing years Brooks continued to develop as an artist, achieving
mastery of the 'rich ambiguities of abstract expressionism." He has
frequently been characterized as "a poet of the subconscious.' |
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In the words of art historian Sam Hunter, written in 1963: "When the year-by-year history of the abstract expressionists is written, the dynamic interaction of the artists, the perpetual, daily excitement of shock and discovery, and the transmission and adaptation of new pictorial ideas among them will make a most instructive chapter. In this process of collective growth, Brooks has been both an influential force and an alert and responsive reactor, particularly to the art of Tomlin, Pollock, de Kooning, and most recently, Guston. The hints he has taken from these artists have been assimilated and transposed into an utterly personal expressive language. |
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