Charles James Martin (artist)

Charles James Martin (artist)

Charles James Martin (September 1886 – August 9, 1955) was an American modernist artist and arts instructor. He worked in a variety of media including etching, lithography, water color, monotype, linocut, woodcut, oil, photography, mezzotint and silversmithing. Born in Mansfield, England in 1886, Martin emigrated to the USA as a boy and lived out the remainder of his life as an American. He studied art under Arthur Wesley Dow at Dow’s Ipswich Summer School of Art as well as at Columbia University Teachers College, where he became an instructor himself in 1914.

Mr. Martin's work is after the new modernist school, the art that seeks essence rather than form, interpretation rather than faithful representation. The results of this first year's training in a type of work so entirely new to Teachers College students are highly gratifying to Professor Dow. According to Mr. Martin, modernist painting must be preceded by ordinary symmetrical drawing by the student. In other words, rules must be learned before they can be departed from. The exhibit showed, therefore, not only paintings of this new character, but also drawings of the old style,—symmetrical, detailed, precise. One of the color experiments of particular interest in this interpretative painting is that of “optical mixtures,” a process by which the mixing of colors to produce another color, is left to the eye, rather than mixed on the palette; green foliage, for example, may be represented by intermingling splotches of blue and yellow. The exhibit showed these modernist studies done in all mediums, —oil, chalk, tempora, water color.

Martin attained professorship at Teachers College in 1923 and continued his work there into the 1940s. Georgia O’Keeffe attended Martin’s class at Teachers college in 1914-15, where she met Anita Pollitzer. O’Keeffe considered Martin’s instruction significant enough that she continued sending examples of her work for his critique in the period after she attended his class. Martin even had a fan in Winston Churchill, as a friend of his writes in a letter circa 1930s:

Wednesday afternoon Mr. and Mrs. Winston Churchill and two sons came in for tea; both Mr. and Mrs. C. are crazy about sketching and water colors. Mr. C. went back to picture three times and stood for ages admiring and commenting upon it- thought the light and shadows perfect and loved the simplicity of the theme. I always feel so proud to say “our friend Prof. Martin!"

In the 1910s, Martin also studied photography with Clarence H. White at Teachers College, and became an instructor at White’s School of Photography in 1918. Also in 1918, Martin won first prize in a photography contest held by Columbia University in which Dow and White were judges. During this time period, he also served on the Executive Committee of the Pictorial Photographers of America .

Martin spent many summers in the 1920s-50s living and teaching plein air art classes in Provincetown, Mass, and also in Mexico. Martin continued working as an art instructor, often on a freelance basis, for the remainder of his life. He died on August 9, 1955 in Hyannis, MA, after a short illness. He is buried at North Burial Ground, Providence, Rhode Island.