WINFIELD GALLERY EXHIBITIONS ONLINE: James Weeks (1922

Both as artist and teacher, James Weeks played a major role in the development of one of San Francisco's most exciting and transformative artistic eras.

The son of a bandleader and a classical pianist, the artist's early life was filled with music and art. He was both a student and teacher at the California School of Fine Arts (now the San Francisco Art Institute). One of his most influential teachers was David Park, an artist who made waves at the forefront of the Bay Area’s dominant Abstract Expressionism movement. In 1950 Park suddenly destroyed the bulk of his abstract paintings and began to include figures in his work. Several artists, including Richard Diebenkorn and Elmer Bischoff followed his lead. Weeks was a natural fit because he remained committed to figurative subjects, having never completely renounced them in favor of pure abstraction. Both literally and stylistically, Weeks was at the center of the Bay Area Figurative Movement from its inception.

Weeks went on to exhibit his work throughout the United States and to teach art for over twenty-five years. His paintings can be found in the collections of such prominent institutions as the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Corcoran Gallery, Washington, DC; and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.

Portraits Exhibition

Although originally painting with oils, Weeks switched to acrylics in 1966. With this medium, he developed a more thoughtful, controlled style, clearly apparent in these mid-1980s era portrait studies. Though small in size, they have a stark yet monumental quality, enhanced by a subdued palette of browns and greens. Depicted with veiled eyes and pensive demeanor, his subjects’ stoic bearing project a deep inward-looking sensibility.