Paint Can & Tools, 1988
Acrylic on Canvas, 21" x 21 1/2"
James Carter was born in Port Chester, New York, in 1948. He studied at Silvermine College of Art in Connecticut and graduated with a B.F.A. from the Maryland Institute of Art. Carter’s paintings and prints have been exhibited at the Zenith Gallery, Washington, D.C., the Horizon Gallery, New York, and the Bell Gallery, Greenwich, Connecticut. His still lifes display the influence of Surrealist painters of the 1930s such as Rene Magritte and Max Ernst. Like the Surrealists, Carter juxtaposes unexpected objects – teacups, whales, and blue skies, for example – which often sit uncomfortably within his pictorial space. But he has also been influenced by the late-nineteenth-century American trompe l’oeil painters William Harnett and John Peto, as demonstrated by the great detail and tactile presence of the objects in his work.
*Excerpted from Tools as Art: the Hechinger Collection, published by Harry N. Abrams Inc.