James Scott

THE GALLERY SEEKS A PHOTO, BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION AND ARTWORK BY JAMES SCOTT. info@GalleryofWisconsinArt.com

BORN:  Sept 3, 1889 in Racine, Wisconsin 

DIED:   March 30, 1967 in Lakewood, Colorado

James Scott was born in Racine Wisconsin and his father was a teamster laborer. Growing up he had two brothers and two sisters. He attended Racine College of Fine Art and later the Art Institute of Chicago.

In 1913, after the Art Institute he landed in Milton New York, which is on the Hudson River. Here he became involved in an art colony founded by a Danish artist from his hometown of Racine Wisconsin, named Anders Anderson. Anderson named the colony Elverhoj, Danish for “hill of the elves.”

Other members of the group included Ralph Pierson an etcher and Joe Popelka a silversmith.  Two other artists, Otto Bacher a potter and Will Low Bacher a designer and painter, both associated with the crafts guild known as White Cloud Farm in nearby Orange County, were also charter members.

All of these artists lived at the colony in Milton NY and their works were exhibited in a gallery that Anderson operated in nearby Poughkeepsie New York. As Elverhoj became more established the name was changed to the Hudson Highlands Art Association.

Along with his work at the colony, Scott studied art with John F. Carlson at Woodstock. He went on to study at the Art Student's League in New York City under Frank DuMond; George Bridgman; Lucien Simon; Ernest Blumenschein; Kenneth Miller; and Robert Henri.

In 1918, Scott was called into military service and remained in France after the war. He became an instructor at the college of Applied and Fine Arts at the University of Beaune, France. He also painted a mural for the Beaune, France theater.

Upon returning to the States, he resumed his work at the studio in Milton. He became a member of the Salmagundi Club, exhibited at the Babcock Gallery, Art Institute of Chicago, Pennsylvania Academy of fine Art as well as the National Academy. 

In 1925, well known New York art critic, Catherine Beach Ely published a book titled Modern Tendency in American Painting in which she devoted an entire chapter to the work of James Scott. She writes of the artist. .”It is refreshing to turn aside from the garish highways of aggressive modernism to the quiet grove of James Scott’s productions. His work is the record of introspective attitude which reveres natures instead of exploiting her. His originality is of the unobtrusive sort which finds nourishment in quiet scenes of haunting beauty.”

During World War II, Scott continued painting and teaching at his studio in Milton. Among the many works he produced during this time was a group of 12 watercolors that he did from sketches he had made during the war. As a WPA artist, these watercolors were bought by the Federal Government and exhibited at the West Point Gallery. Scott also completed a triptych of the battleship New Jersey. He exhibited at the Albany Institute of History and Art and the Charles A. Wustum Museum of Fine Arts in Racine.

His paintings are in the permanent collections of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum in Hyde Park, Syracuse University Art Galleries, Vassar College and Doane College.

Along with his paintings, Scott was also known for his gifted design, metal, and jewelry work.

In 1966 Scott and his wife moved to Colorado where he died in 1967.

Source: AskArt, submitted by Sanford Levy.