James Prosek | |
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| Born | May 23, 1975 (age 48) Stamford, Connecticut, U.S. |
| Nationality |  United States |
| Education | Yale University |
| Known for | Art, Writing, Conservation |
| Awards | George Foster Peabody Award (2002) |
James Prosek (born May 23, 1975) is an American artist, writer and naturalist. He was born in Connecticut and grew up in the town of Easton, CT where he still lives. His father was born in Santos, Brazil and his mother in Prague, Czechoslovakia. [1] He is a 1997 graduate of Yale University. [2]
Prosek published his first book in 1996 while studying at Yale. [3] Trout: An Illustrated History included watercolors of seventy species, subspecies, and strains of trout in North America. With the publication of Trout, the first book of its kind, Prosek became widely recognized as having brought attention to the existence and plight of native trout, leading to widespread conservation efforts. A year later, in 1997, he published his second book, Joe and Me: An Education in Fishing and Friendship. [4] His second trout book, Trout of the World, published in 2003, [5] is a collection of one hundred watercolors of native trout from Europe, Asia and North Africa (updated and expanded in 2013, Abrams). [6]
Since those early documentary works Prosek's art has become more conceptual, engaging in questions of how we name, systematize and order nature. His art has been featured in exhibitions at The Asia Society Hong Kong Center, Yale University Art Gallery, Amon Carter Museum of American Art, New-York Historical Society Museum, Florence Griswold Museum, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Smithsonian American Art Museum, The Addison Gallery of American Art, North Carolina Museum of Art, the New Britain Museum of American Art, The Yale Center for British Art, The Royal Academy of Arts in London, The Buffalo Bill Center of the West, and The National Academy of Sciences among other institutions. His first solo museum exhibition, Life & Death - A Visual Taxonomy, was at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, CT in 2007. [7]
He has been an artist-in-residence at numerous institutions including the Yale University Art Gallery, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and the Addison Gallery of American Art.
In 2002, Prosek won a Peabody Award for his documentary on 17th-century author and angler Izaak Walton and his book The Compleat Angler. [8] As an undergraduate at Yale University he majored in English Literature, and was a member of Manuscript Society. [9] Of his second book Joe and Me his teacher, the literary critic Harold Bloom, wrote “Prosek is a writer at once artful and natural, an original in literature even as he is in painting.” [10]
The art historian Brian T. Allen noted Harold Bloom's fondness for Prosek and his work. “Bloom called Prosek ‘an original’,” Allen wrote, who considered Prosek "the best artist of [Bloom's] era." [11]
Allen considers Prosek a kind of outsider, comparing him in that sense to the British ceramicist-artist Grayson Perry who hung Prosek's work in the 250th Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in London. "In art," he writes, "Perry and Prosek don’t just challenge the conventional. They ignore it." [11]
In 2004 Prosek co-founded a conservation initiative with Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard called "World Trout" [12] which raises money for coldwater habitat conservation. [13]
Since the start of the program in 2005, the World Trout Initiative has given $2 million to over 200 fish conservation groups. [14]
Prosek is the author of eleven books for both adults and children, [15] including Ocean Fishes (Rizzoli, 2012) and The Day My Mother Left (Simon & Schuster, 2006). He has written for the New York Times and National Geographic Magazine . [16]
His book, Eels: An Exploration, From New Zealand to the Sargasso, of the World's Most Mysterious Fish, was released by HarperCollins in September 2011 and was a New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice. [17] The book was adapted as a documentary for the PBS series Nature that aired in 2013. [18]
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John Singer Sargent was an American expatriate artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian-era luxury. He created roughly 900 oil paintings and more than 2,000 watercolors, as well as countless sketches and charcoal drawings. His oeuvre documents worldwide travel, from Venice to the Tyrol, Corfu, Spain, the Middle East, Montana, Maine, and Florida.
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Alice Schille (1869–1955) was an American watercolorist and painter from Columbus, Ohio. She was renowned for her Impressionist and Post Impressionist paintings, which usually depicted scenes featuring markets, women, children, and landscapes. Her ability to capture the character of her subjects and landscapes often resulted in her winning the top prize in art competitions. She was also known for her versatility in painting styles; her influences included the “Dutch Old Masters, James McNeill Whistler, the Fauves, and Mexican muralists.” Her estate is represented by Keny Galleries in Columbus, OH.
David Aldrich was an American watercolor painter and architect from Rhode Island. The landscapes and cityscapes that he painted were not painted with literal realism but rather with freedom and spontaneity in an attempt to capture the essence of the scene.
Frederic James (1915–1985) was an American painter who specialized in watercolors. He was associated with the Regionalist art movement.
Timothy J. Clark is an American artist best known for his large watercolor paintings of urban landscapes, still lifes, and interiors, and for his oil and watercolor portraits. His paintings and drawings are in the permanent collections of more than twenty art museums.
Louis John Rhead was an English-born American artist, illustrator, author and angler who was born in Etruria, Staffordshire, England. He emigrated to the United States at the age of twenty-four.
Alan Shuptrine is a painter known for his Southern and Appalachian Mountains genre. He is a frame-maker, water gilder, and watercolorist. He is the son of painter Hubert Shuptrine (1936-2006).
This annotated bibliography is intended to list both notable and not so notable works of English language, non-fiction and fiction related to the sport of fly fishing listed by year published. Although 100% of any book listed is not necessarily devoted to fly fishing, all these titles have significant fly fishing content. Included in this bibliography is a list of species related fly fishing literature.
Fly Fishers International (FFI) is an international 501(c)(3) non-profit organization headquartered in Livingston, Montana. It was founded in 1964 and formalized a year later in 1965. FFI is an organized voice for fly fishers around the world; they represent all aspects of fly fishing, which include the art of fly tying, casting, and protection of the natural systems that support healthy fisheries and their habitats. Today, the organization's goals are to ensure the legacy of fly fishing worldwide. They focus on conservation, education and a sense of community.
Lee Wulff, born Henry Leon Wulff, was an artist, pilot, fly fisherman, author, filmmaker, outfitter and conservationist who made significant contributions to recreational fishing, especially fly fishing and the conservation of Atlantic Salmon.
Henry Edison McDaniel was a watercolor artist of landscapes, trout and salmon fishing scenes.
The American Angler's BookEmbracing the Natural History of Sporting Fish and the Art of Taking Them with Instructions in Fly-Fishing, Fly-Making, and Rod-Making and Directions for Fish-Breeding, to which is appended Dies Piscatoriae Describing Noted Fishing-Places, and The Pleasure of Solitary Fly-Fishing is an early American angling book by Thaddeus Norris (1811-1877) first published in 1864. Norris was known as Uncle Thad and commonly referred to in American angling history as "The American Walton".
The Trout and Salmonid Collection is a special collection of literature and archives in the Montana State University Library's Merrill G. Burlingame Special Collections Library. The collection is also known as The Bud Lilly Trout and Salmonid Collection, named after Bud Lilly who was instrumental in starting the collection. The approximately 20,000-volume collection, established in 2000, is devoted to preserving literary, scientific, government and media resources related to all aspects of trout and other salmonids. The collection contains materials in many languages and is not restricted by geography. It is considered a world-class collection of international significance relative to the study of trout and salmonids.
Bernard Chaet was an American artist; Chaet is known for his colorful, dynamic modernist paintings and masterful draftsmanship, his association with the Boston Expressionists, and his 40-year career as a professor of painting at Yale University. His works also include watercolors and prints. In 1994, he was named a National Academician by the National Academy of Design.
Victor George Kord is an American painter and educator. He currently maintains a studio and exhibits in New York City. He previously served as art department chair for several major universities, and remains professor emeritus of painting at Cornell University Department of Art.
Alberto Rey is a Cuban-American painter, illustrator, filmmaker, educator and writer. His work has been featured in over 200 exhibitions and screenings and has been included in the permanent collections of twenty museums including Albright-Knox Art Gallery, the Bronx Museum of the Arts, the Brooklyn Museum, the Burchfield Penney Art Center, El Museo del Barrio, Extremaduran and Latin American Museum of Contemporary Art, Museum of Art Fort Lauderdale, Museum of Latin American Art, and the Peabody Essex Museum. Rey is currently a distinguished professor at the State University of New York at Fredonia and in 2012 was inducted into the Burchfield Penney Art Center's Living Legacy Project. He has written several books corresponding to series of his work: Candaway Creek - Western New York (2021), Lost Beauty: Icebergs (2021), Lost Beauty: Part II - The Art of Museum Stories (2021), Extinct Birds Project (2018), and Complexities of Water - Biological Regionalism: Bagmati River, Kathmandu Valley, Nepal (2016) about the holiest and most polluted river Bagmati River in Kathmandu, Nepal. He has also had many articles and illustrations published in several magazines including the Buffalo Spree, Gray’s Sporting Journal, Art of Angling Journal, Fish and Fly Magazine, American Angler, and Saltwater Fisherman. The Virginia Sportsman magazine also published an extensive article about Alberto's work and life in their Fall 2023 issue. Art historians and curators have also written one book and several essays about his work. Rey was selected as an international finalist for the 2020 Orvis Freshwater Guide of the Year and the winner of the 2021 Orvis Fly Fishing Guide of the Year.
