Frederic James was a regionalist painter who focused primarily on rural Missouri and Kansas. He often painted from direct observation en plein air, as well as from photographs taken during his travels to Japan, Egypt, Jamaica, and Europe.
A native of Missouri, he attended the Kansas City Art Institute and later studied at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. During World War II, James joined the U.S. Army as a draftsman in the Army Corps of Engineers. During the remainder of his service, he worked as a photographer and painter creating what he described as a “pictorial war record” for the U.S. Army Forces in South America. After leaving the Army as master sergeant in 1945, James returned to the Kansas City Art Institute to teach watercolor and formed a close friendship with painter Thomas Hart Benton.
