Enduring Watercolors
Revisiting the life and prolific works of art by James Milton Sessions, discerning observers appreciate the beauty of Sessions’ watercolors and the technical ability with which they were created
Revisiting the life and prolific works of art by James Milton Sessions, discerning observers appreciate the beauty of Sessions’ watercolors and the technical ability with which they were created
Askilled artist masters the properties of pigment. Colors become translucent when blending into wet surfaces.these passages are unique for each area of application. James Milton Sessions’ Late Afternoon Snow incorporates various layers of translucent washes with drybrush to enhance detail.
Several of Sessions’ contemporaries also chose watercolor as their primary medium. John Whorf, Ogden Pleissner, Edmond James Fitzgerald,
Percy Grey and Aiden Lassell Ripley are wellknown for their prolific careers in watercolor. Sessions and his contemporaries were the leading watercolorists of their time. Sessions’ training at the Art Institute of Chicago influenced his standards, which he never compromised.the quality of his entries in competitive art venues, as well as the body of his illustrative work, received equal creative attention.
The marine painting Clean Up illustrates the artist’s awareness of geometric composition. Triangles are formed by the downed sails, rigging lines, cropped masts, the bow of the boat and its reflection in the water.
During the 1930s Depression, the Waryears and through the 1950s, while America rebuilt its economy, many skilled artists focused on depicting industrialization. Steel Mill portrays the progressive energy of America’s working class. Sessions’ task, in addition to creating a balanced composition, was to capture the energy and action within a steel mill, a place
that houses furnaces reaching a temperature of 9,000 degrees. Giant cauldrons are aglow and ladles transfer molten metal to vats.timing has to be empirically perfect, for once a pour starts, there is no stopping the flow. Soot, deafening noise, heat and the red glow are ever-present. Sessions’ painting reveals admiration for these workers who labored around the clock in a dangerous environment.
Sessions’ affinity for the outdoors led to his association with Field & Stream magazine. In Fly-fishing, the rainbow trout is foreground right and the angler is mid-ground left center, creating a magnificently natural compositional sphere.those who have felt the water’s current around their boots or the tug on the fly rod’s line, will identify with this painting.
Sessions’ watercolors attracted an audience with an appreciation for leisure time in natural settings.
The Canoers suggests a subtle impression of a bull moose leaving the water’s edge, where it is observed by two canoers drifting into the open water.an atmospheric mist softens the animal’s imposing presence. In the absence of weapons, neither rifle nor bow, the scene relates as much to the appreciation of natural environment as it might to hunting.
Commissions for advertisements carried Sessions through economically challenging years.these commissions appeared in Field & Stream, Vintage Magazine, The Saturday Evening Post and calendars for Brown & Bigelow. Borg Warner and Willey’s Jeep ads appeared in military as well as civilian publications. In Chicago, he was employed as an artist for The Chicago Tribune and Vogue-wright Studios.
In the painting Bobwhite Quail, the artist presents a covey of Bobwhite quail flushed toward and around the viewer.the quail, hunters and Brittany pointer create a deliberate circular design.the water pump and bucket hold the viewer’s eyes to the central space. Such conscious composition transcends pictorial illustration. Sessions was an artist first and illustrator second. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in Newyork, from March 5 to April 6, 1943, mounted a major exhibition featuring paintings of World War II.
Several of Sessions’ war paintings were included in this exhibition.a book featuring Sessions’ wartime watercolors was soon after published: James Milton Sessions: American World War II Artist and Premier Brush Reporter. The images there were described as theatrical. He set the stage with dramatic and ubiquitous action.
In the early 1960s, Sessions received national attention as an artist when the Newyork Graphic Society commissioned four watercolors to be included in the society’s Master Group Collection. These and other examples of his watercolors were reproduced and sold as affordable prints for public distribution.
Marine scenes were especially popular; therefore, painting maritime subjects became prominent in Sessions’ career. He painted a large portion of his work on Whatman drawing/painting board, a board with rough drawing paper on the surface. He also used various watercolor papers.
Sessions’ watercolors are included in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Milwaukee Museum of Fine Arts, the Cleveland Museum of Fine Art,
the Seattle Art Museum and Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry, as well as several corporate collections.
Today many collectors are searching for works of art by American artists at affordable prices.the connoisseur in collecting is always looking for the finest examples created during an artist’s career. The aesthetic beauty of watercolors offers this opportunity.there is much to be desired in reevaluating works of art on paper, created by skilled artists active during an earlier era.