James Edward Brewton was born Nov. 4, 1930, in Toledo, Ohio....
Jim in Denmark with a (now missing) painting.
He died by his own hand in Philadelphia, May 11, 1967. At the time of his death at 36, Jim was beginning to distinguish himself as one of Philadelphia’s premier painters and printmakers.
While he is known for portraits, prints and his abstract, graffiti-inspired paintings, Jim's training was traditional. He studied at the Ruskin School at Oxford in 1954-55 and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) from 1955 through 1958. At PAFA, Jim was a protegé of Franklin Watkins and Hobson Pittman. Pittman owned a self-portrait by Jim, which Pittman featured during tours of his art collection and exhibited in the show, “Paintings, Drawings, Prints, and Sculpture Collected and Owned by Fourteen Philadelphia Artists.”
Jim Brewton was influenced by Marcel Duchamp, André Breton and Alfred Jarry. In the early 1960s he met Danish artists Erik Nyholm and Asger Jorn, and was enthralled by the expressive CoBrA group's work, helping Jorn with his Comparative Vandalism project and riffing off of the Situationists. These European, avant-garde inspirations were extremely unusual for a Philadelphia-based artist at the time.
Jim’s work won awards and prizes, and he was championed by critics while he was still a student. “Mr. Brewton’s career was launched dramatically,” ran his obituary in The Philadelphia Inquirer in 1967, “when his canvas The Suicide of Judas won the prestigious $1000 Schiedt prize …. the tall ex-marine sergeant, a veteran of the Korean war, thus captured—at the very early age of 28—the same award William Glackens, Stuart Davis, Hans Hoffman, Ivan Albright and Charles Burchfield had earned in their maturity.”
From his base in Philadelphia, Jim traveled whenever he could, to Spain, France, England and Denmark. In early 1964, Jim lent several works he owned to the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s Asger Jorn exhibition. Rather than teaching, he took part-time manual jobs and concentrated on painting and printmaking. One former employer remembers ordering a sumptuous display of paint samples for his store so Jim could take the paints home. “In return, he gave me a copy of The Pataphysics Times, one of his prints.” (continued)
While he is known for portraits, prints and his abstract, graffiti-inspired paintings, Jim's training was traditional. He studied at the Ruskin School at Oxford in 1954-55 and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) from 1955 through 1958. At PAFA, Jim was a protegé of Franklin Watkins and Hobson Pittman. Pittman owned a self-portrait by Jim, which Pittman featured during tours of his art collection and exhibited in the show, “Paintings, Drawings, Prints, and Sculpture Collected and Owned by Fourteen Philadelphia Artists.”
Jim Brewton was influenced by Marcel Duchamp, André Breton and Alfred Jarry. In the early 1960s he met Danish artists Erik Nyholm and Asger Jorn, and was enthralled by the expressive CoBrA group's work, helping Jorn with his Comparative Vandalism project and riffing off of the Situationists. These European, avant-garde inspirations were extremely unusual for a Philadelphia-based artist at the time.
Jim’s work won awards and prizes, and he was championed by critics while he was still a student. “Mr. Brewton’s career was launched dramatically,” ran his obituary in The Philadelphia Inquirer in 1967, “when his canvas The Suicide of Judas won the prestigious $1000 Schiedt prize …. the tall ex-marine sergeant, a veteran of the Korean war, thus captured—at the very early age of 28—the same award William Glackens, Stuart Davis, Hans Hoffman, Ivan Albright and Charles Burchfield had earned in their maturity.”
From his base in Philadelphia, Jim traveled whenever he could, to Spain, France, England and Denmark. In early 1964, Jim lent several works he owned to the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s Asger Jorn exhibition. Rather than teaching, he took part-time manual jobs and concentrated on painting and printmaking. One former employer remembers ordering a sumptuous display of paint samples for his store so Jim could take the paints home. “In return, he gave me a copy of The Pataphysics Times, one of his prints.” (continued)