Untitled (Stalked Tomatoes)
Artist
Douglas James
(American, born 1945)
Date1973
MediumOil on canvas
Dimensions17 3/4 × 24 × 2 1/2 in. (45.1 × 61 × 6.4 cm)
ClassificationsPainting
Credit LineGift of James Pearson Duffy, 2008
Object numberUAC3671
Description“Untitled (Staked Tomatoes)” was finished slightly before Doug James’ immersion into the Cass Corridor aesthetic. However, one can see that his interests have never wavered from capturing familiar, even mundane, moments with a kind of isolated intimacy. The single vine is in labor with various stages of ripening tomatoes, perhaps much like the young artist who himself is labored with producing an early style and develops various paintings at the same time. James’ academic training is evident in this early work; there is clear commitment to realism with a subtle yearning for abstraction. This painting is very interesting to consider within the entire development of James’ work. His style has very much returned to one akin to “Staked Tomatoes,” but with the experience and wisdom of the Cass Corridor movement and urban expressionism. Aspects, such as light, are similar between “Staked Tomatoes” and his later paintings. The brilliant greens and stark highlights of a garden in the summer sun gave way to psychedelic fluctuations of synthetic color. It is fascinating to retrospectively appreciate realistic rendering from an artist now so closely associated with surreal and flamboyant aesthetic. 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 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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