James Griffin
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James Griffin is one of the leading illustrators in the book publishing world, having created thousands of cover and inside illustrations for clients such as Random House, Harper Collins, Viking Penguin, Berkley Books, St. Martins Press, Harlequin, Zondervan, Scholastic Books and many others. His covers can be found in most book stores . In addition, he has continuously been doing artwork for himself, where subject, technique and design are of his own choosing and in which he can indulge his passion for painting, without the constraints of the publishing world. His love of color and design are evident in these paintings, along with vigorous brushwork that reveals his excitement with paint in all its textural glory. The Florida series, which he is currently working on, are filled with a sense of joyous light and color. They often contain small anomalies of geometric shapes filled with color or pattern that interact with the overall image by inviting the viewer to look at the image as an abstract composition, as well as a depiction of a scene. |
Meditations on Light by Su Byron, Style Magazine
Sarasota Visual Arts, "Luminous Color, A Journey"
Oils, Page 1 Oils, Page 2
Click on a picture below for a larger image.
All images on this website are copyrighted. All rights reserved. Reproduction of any kind is forbidden without permission.
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Résumé
Griffin received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY in 1972.
He began painting as a young child and began illustrating in 1976. His work has won various awards and is in many private collections, as well as three paintings in the US Marine Corps Museum in Quantico, VA.
I was steered towards illustration by an experienced illustrator, Charles Gehm. Already experimenting with realism, using photographic reference, I was shown how to use my inclination and actually make a living.A trip to Italy in 1984 reinforced this classical tendency, when I saw the works of Carravaggio, Botticelli and other painters. I recognized that those artists were really illustrators in every sense. Their images were designed to communicate and tell a story. They worked for clients whom they had to satisfy if they wanted to continue being employed, and they had to meet deadlines as part of their job, (admittedly they had much more time, with some commissions taking years to complete). Up till that point, I had generally seen Illustration as sort of a commercial half brother of “Fine Art”, and it troubled me to think I was selling out and should instead be painting in a “pure” way. But I began to realize that the Art industry was responsible for the pure art myth, when in fact it, too was a commercial system, - just with different rules! Since then I have worked steadily with the goal in mind to continue the ancient tradition of Art Illustration, to not just satisfy the client, but also satisfy my sense of Art. By most recent estimate I have created around 3000 illustrations so far for clients such as, Avon Books, Ballantine Books, Berkley Books, Dell, Doubleday, Harcourt, Harlequin, Holt Rhinehart Winston, Little Brown, New American Library, Random House, Rounder Records,The Bradford Exchange, The Wall Street Journal, Viking Penguin, Italian Vogue, Zondervan and Zebra.
James lives is the Sarasota area, but grew up in Canada, Peru, Brazil and England, as well as the Midwest USA
June 2009 - Two of Griffin's prints have been accepted into the Eaton Collection at the Rivera Library, University of California.