Education of the Schoolboy
Artist
Douglas James
(American, born 1945)
Date1979
MediumPlated metal
Dimensions46 1/2 × 23 × 3 in. (118.1 × 58.4 × 7.6 cm)
ClassificationsSculpture
Credit LineGift of James Pearson Duffy, 1992
Object numberUAC1332
Description“Education of the Schoolboy” may be the crown jewel achievement of Doug James’ work produced within the Cass Corridor movement aesthetic. It is typical of his interest in recycling nontraditional materials (cardboard, found metal, etc.) to create familiar and even mundane objects. What makes “Education of a Schoolboy” particularly brilliant is the conceptual and autobiographical elements not otherwise apparent in James’ other sculpture. The sculpture is large, almost four feet tall, and the objects are arranged together in a way that adds a menacing undertone to their otherwise normal condition. In the catalog titled “Up from the Streets,” James is quoted describing the work to be a reference to the carpenter’s term “schoolboy,” which is an insult for someone that works ‘like a hammer,’ meaning you must hit their head to make them work. After his MFA, James spent some time in New York city and took up work as a carpenter since he was unable to support himself there as a full time artist. While in New York, he wrote personal letters to prominent Detroit art collector, James Pearson Duffy, in which he stated that he didn’t enjoy being a carpenter and that it was keeping him from spending enough time in his studio. In one letter, James gives directions for how to care for the “Education of a Schoolboy” in which he advises that Duffy must experience polishing the steel for its “Zen” benefits. Doug James was born in Detroit in 1945 and graduated from Wayne State University in 1967. James was a young artist in the gritty, urban expressionist movement in Detroit called Cass Corridor. During the Cass Corridor era, James fit into the movement where artists were interested in recycling city materials to create everyday or mundane objects. He received his MFA from Yale University in 1970 and then soon returned to Detroit. In 2009, James was included in a large exhibition that commemorated an influential art collector, James Pearson Duffy, and featured the Cass Corridor artists as a valuable movement during the mid-20th-century. James continues to work in Detroit and New York where his current style retains a certain awareness for the unrefined aesthetic but now is employed in naturalistic scenes of people and places.
Fiorucci
4/12/18
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