James Morgan: Keen Observation
A new James Morgan retrospective in Colorado presents an impressionistic glimpse into nature.
There is an art to painting animals in their natural habitat. The animals live in their habitats and are one with them. An artist who experiences and keenly observes, develops a seemingly easy familiarity with nature and can make the animal and its setting more—as it were—natural.
Growing up and living in Utah, James Morgan became familiar with nature’s big picture as well as its details—the big changes of the seasons and the subtle changes of light throughout the day. He became familiar with the way animals live in and interact with their environment. Living at the base of the Westville Mountain Range, Morgan feels the area has enough wildlife and landscape to inspire him for a lifetime.
He says, “I seek to achieve a balance between the subject and its environment. The excitement for me is constantly exploring new ways to interpret nature. I am convinced that no one can improve on natural compositions, when they can be isolated. Rhythms, too, can be magical if you can isolate them and that gets easier with experience. It comes from trusting your own vision. It is the way you look at things and see something lyrical or harmonious.”
His paintings are impressionistic in that they are not frozen with detail. They’re accurate, but express a fleeting moment of observation. In Three Part Harmony, yellow-headed blackbirds alight on wavering cattails growing out of a shimmering pond. “I am intrigued by the
patterns and shapes found in nature” he says, “and concentrate on the effects of light on these elements and the resulting array of colors in nature’s ever-changing moods.”
Color is at a minimum in Cliff Dwellers, but the light dramatic, as a sleek, monochromatic puma, stealthily descends toward his prey from his observation point on a cliff. Sharing the environment are cliff swallows, hunkered down in their mud nests built as part of colonies against the rocks. The elegant puma, sometimes known as a cougar or mountain lion, is called “Greatest of Wild Hunters” among the Cree and “Cat of God” by the Chickasaw. In one of his many mistakes, Columbus called them “lions.” The irony of Morgan’s painting is that the puma prefers medium to large mammals, but will often eat birds.
James Morgan Retrospective Exhibit: Moments in the Wild is an exhibition showcasing nearly 40 years of his watercolors, oils, as well as his studies and sketches. It opens at the Steamboat Art Museum in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, on December 7
and continues through April 19, 2019. Betse Grassby, the museum’s executive director, says, “His representation of the nature and wildlife which surrounds us also serves to remind us of the importance to preserve these habitats and this landscape.”
Morgan worked in conservation in Alaska when he was young and continues to be an advocate for conservation, assuring that what he sees and paints today will be around for future generations. He was named 2008 Master Wildlife Artist by the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum at the time of its annual Birds in Art exhibition. At the time, the Woodson’s director, Kathy Foley said, Morgan is “the quintessential ‘painter’s painter,’ an artist consistently admired and revered by his peers.”