Charles James Martin (artist), Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
TweetCharles James Martin (artist)
American artist
Date of Birth: 01-Sep-1886
Place of Birth: Mansfield, England, United Kingdom
Date of Death: 09-Aug-1955
Profession: artist
Zodiac Sign: Virgo 
About Charles James Martin (artist)
- Charles James Martin (September 1886 ā August 9, 1955) was an American modernist artist and arts instructor.
- He worked in a variety of media including etching, lithography, water color, monotype, linocut, woodcut, oil, photography, mezzotint and silversmithing.
- Born in Mansfield, England in 1886, Martin emigrated to the US as a boy and lived out the remainder of his life as an American.
- He studied art under Arthur Wesley Dow at Dow's Ipswich Summer School of Art as well as at Columbia University Teachers College, where he became an instructor himself in 1914. Mr.
- Martin's work is after the new modernist school, the art that seeks essence rather than form, interpretation rather than faithful representation.
- The results of this first year's training in a type of work so entirely new to Teachers College students are highly gratifying to Professor Dow.
- According to Mr.
- Martin, modernist painting must be preceded by ordinary symmetrical drawing by the student.
- In other words, rules must be learned before they can be departed from.
- The exhibit showed, therefore, not only paintings of this new character, but also drawings of the old style ā symmetrical, detailed, precise.
- One of the color experiments of particular interest in this interpretative painting is that of "optical mixtures," a process by which the mixing of colors to produce another color, is left to the eye, rather than mixed on the palette; green foliage, for example, may be represented by intermingling splotches of blue and yellow.
- The exhibit showed these modernist studies done in all mediums ā oil, chalk, tempora, water color. Martin attained professorship at Teachers College in 1923 and continued his work there into the 1940s.
- Georgia O'Keeffe attended Martin's class at Teachers college in 1914ā15, where she met Anita Pollitzer.
- O'Keeffe considered Martin's instruction significant enough that she continued sending examples of her work for his critique in the period after she attended his class.
- Martin even had a fan in Winston Churchill, as a friend of his writes in a letter c.
- 1930s: Wednesday afternoon Mr.
- and Mrs.
- Winston Churchill and two sons came in for tea; both Mr.
- and Mrs.
- C.
- are crazy about sketching and water colors.
- Mr.
- C.
- went back to [Charles'] picture three times and stood for ages admiring and commenting upon it ā thought the light and shadows perfect and loved the simplicity of the theme.
- I always feel so proud to say "our friend Prof.
- Martin!" In the 1910s, Martin also studied photography with Clarence H.
- White at Teachers College, and became an instructor at White's School of Photography in 1918.
- Also in 1918, Martin won first prize in a photography contest held by Columbia University in which Dow and White were judges.
- During this time period, he also served on the Executive Committee of the Pictorial Photographers of America [3]. Martin spent many summers in the 1920sā50s living and teaching plein air art classes in Provincetown, Mass, and also in Mexico.
- Martin continued working as an art instructor, often on a freelance basis, for the remainder of his life.
- He died on August 9, 1955 in Hyannis, MA, after a short illness.
- He is buried at North Burial Ground, Providence, Rhode Island.
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