“I use graffiti in my work because they are anonymous and therefore for all mankind,” said Jim Brewton, in 1965. The Philadelphia-based painter died at 36, but he had found his distinctive voice at 30.
“There was an artist who was ahead of his time, who was brilliant, sensitive and non-violent…” wrote Nessa Forman in The Philadelphia Inquirer in 1971. “Brewton was into conceptual art before the term was coined. … And innovate he did, with wit, with humor, with sophistication and good taste. Ironically, his graffiti paintings and lithographs hold more insight and value for us today than when he painted them.”
Raised in Ohio, Jim Brewton studied art at the Toledo Museum school, served in the Korean War and enrolled at the Ruskin School of Art in Oxford in 1954, on the G.I. Bill. In the summer of 1955, he transferred to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) in Philadelphia, Class of 1958.
Dorothy Grafly, Philadelphia Bulletin art critic, wrote in 1967: “Mr. Brewton’s career was launched dramatically when his canvas ‘The Suicide of Judas’ won the prestigious $1000 Schiedt prize in the national biennial exhibition of American painting and sculpture … during the 1959-60 season. The tall ex-marine sergeant … thus captured—at the very early age of 28—the same award William Glackens, Stuart Davis, Hans Hofmann, Ivan Albright and Charles Burchfield had earned in their maturity.”
It’s unclear when Brewton became fascinated by Alfred Jarry and ’Pataphysics. Colleagues say he was talking about Jarry by 1958. At the time, Brewton was working at The Print Club in Philadelphia, where he was electrified by the spontaneous style of Danish artist Asger Jorn, a founder of the CoBrA and Situationist International groups.
Brewton left Philadelphia for Denmark in 1962, working for about a year with ceramicist Erik Nyholm, Jorn and others. Although he had always been one for daring use of color, Brewton’s later works show a more liberated style that owed its freedom to CoBrA. The principles of Jorn’s Comparative Vandalism project gave Brewton a focus for his artistic quest: the interpretation of meaning in symbols.
Philadelphia artist and teacher Hobson Pittman knew the importance of symbols in Brewton’s work, writing for a memorial exhibition catalogue: “A truly gifted artist. … Jim Brewton, from his earliest work, gave evidence of a peculiar and constant search for the nebulous and metaphysical symbol. … His standard of judgement was … innate, as it is with genuinely endowed artists. His deep understanding of aesthetics was evident in everything he did.”
While Jorn gave graffiti a passing nod as part of his Comparative Vandalism project, Brewton incorporated graffiti and ’Pataphysics into his interpretation of the world. Yet his vision was absolutely original, as Hobson Pittman noted: “It is the assimilation ... the editing and discretion of borrowing without imitation, that shows the signs of greatness.”
Brewton called his new practice “Graffiti Pataphysic.” Between 1963 and 1967, he created his most original pieces. In the last phase of his life, Brewton created collages, prints, sculptures and paintings that are cogent, elegant comments about freedom, racism, sex, war, assassination and music.
In 1965 Brewton returned to Denmark, where he was artist-in-residence at Aage Damgaard’s studio (Damgaard founded the Herning—now “Heart”—Kunstmuseum). That year, Brewton had a successful solo exhibition, “Graffiti Pataphysic: The American Dream-Girl,” at the AP Galerie in Copenhagen; and another, “Graffiti Pataphysic,” at the Kenmore Galleries in Philadelphia. Andy Warhol, in town for his October 1965 show at the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), noticed Brewton’s work at the Kenmore Galleries and invited him to the ICA opening.
On May 15, 1967, Brewton’s work was featured in a four-man show at the Socrates Perakis Art Gallery in Philadelphia. Four days earlier, discouraged and ill, 36-year-old Brewton had shot himself in his studio.
Two memorial shows were held. Brewton’s work was exhibited at the Peale Galleries at PAFA, along with that of Robert Rauschenberg, in 1968. In 1971, the Kenmore Galleries held another memorial with proceeds going to a PAFA student fund. When the show closed, Brewton’s works were dispersed; they have not been shown publicly since then.
The James Edward Brewton Foundation was formed in 2008 to locate, catalogue, restore and lend the artist’s works to museums and other arts venues; and to promote study and appreciation of the modern-art movements Brewton drew upon for inspiration. More than 100 Brewton works have been catalogued to date. The Brewton Foundation is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. For more information, post a comment and we'll be happy to contact you.
