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The James Museum of Western and Wildlife Art in St. Petersburg, Florida, which opened in 2018, houses the art collection of Tom and Mary James. I postponed visiting the James because I’m more of a fan of the Industrial Revolution and New York City than of the old West and cowboys … I should know better, having written (for example) about why I love Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Harry Potter. Sense of life or theme almost always matters more than literal subject. I like the sense of life of many of the works at the James very much. Also, the caliber of the workmanship is generally very good, whether in paint or bronze. The sight of good technique in a recent work reminds me that artists are still out there who are capable of creating expressive and evocative works. It’s like reading a newly published novel that has great plot, characters, and style, even if I don’t like the ending. It gives me hope.

This post is available as a video at https://youtu.be/pPdfcVE3g9E.

About the James

For 40 years, Thomas James was chairman of Raymond James Financial, a brokerage firm established in 1962 by the merger of Robert A. James Investments and Raymond & Associates. Today total client assets under management are about $1.18 trillion. The home of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers is Raymond James Stadium.

As a boy, James loved cowboys, Indians, and the romance of the West. Soon after his marriage, he and his wife began collecting art related to those subjects. Since the Jameses make a point of supporting artists who were still alive, many of the bronzes and paintings at the James Museum date to the late 20th and 21st centuries. As I said, it’s quite delightful to be reminded that artists of such high technical abilities are still at work! The James Museum also includes a display of Mary’s collection of Indian jewelry. For more on Tom and Mary James, see this interview.

Architecture

When I first saw the James Museum’s home, I took it to be a quirky creation of Frank Gehry or one of his imitators. But as one of the helpful docents explained, it was, in fact, designed to recall the American West. The outside is colored like sandstone, and there’s an abstract version of a pueblo village at the second floor.

The two-story entrance hall recalls a sandstone canyon. The waterfall at the far end adds a very pleasant sound.

Bronzes on the main level: John Coleman

The entrance level houses a group of spectacular bronzes, three of them by John Coleman. Background on the Coleman bronzes: George Catlin (1796-1872) decided in his twenties that he wanted to preserve a record of Indian customs and individuals. From 1830 to 1836, he made five trips to the West, visiting fifty tribes. Some of the routes were the same as those used by Lewis and Clark in 1803-1806. Catlin and his colleague Karl Bodmer painted portraits of some of the Indians Lewis and Clark had met.

In the early 21st century, John Coleman (b. 1949) decided to recreate in three dimensions the Indians depicted by Bodmer and Catlin, but showing the figures as they would have been thirty years earlier, when Lewis and Clark met them. Coleman’s figures in the entrance hall are life-size, extremely detailed, and quite impressive. More on Coleman at his website and here.

More bronzes on the entrance level

Bruce Greene (like John Coleman) is a member of the Cowboy Artists of America. That means he has to be meticulous about correctly representing every detail of a cowboy, from the hat to the spurs to the horse tack.

This young man is serenading his intended bride with a flute. More of Joe Beeler’s works here.

The sculpture below is as close as any work in the James comes to modernist art. In this case (unlike, for example, most Cubist works), the straight lines and sharp angles give a sense of violent movement that works very well for a bucking bronco.

Next week: bronzes on the second floor of the James Museum.

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