American artist James Brooks is considered a first-generation abstract expressionist painter. Brooks began his career painting murals for the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Art Project and then served overseas as a combat artist with the U.S. Army during World War II. After returning to New York, he reconnected with Jackson Pollock and other contemporaries shaping postwar abstraction. Brooks later developed a distinctive painting technique using diluted oil paint stained directly into raw canvas.
Brooks studied art at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, before enrolling at the Art Students League in New York, where he supported himself as a commercial letterer. His work is held in many museum collections, including the Art Institute of Chicago and the Guggenheim Museum and the Museum of Modern Art, both in New York.
Website
http://www.jamesbrooks.org
