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James Juthstrom (January 30, 1925 – May 8, 2007) was New York-based artist known for his paintings, drawings, etchings, and sculpture. Over his lifetime, his work has ranged figurative scenes, muted landscapes, to complete abstraction. The artist worked out of his loft in SoHo and at different scales–from massive canvases to small panels.

James F. Juthstrom
Born	James Frederick Juthstrom (1925-01-30)January 30, 1925 The Bronx, New York, United States
Died	(2007-05-08)May 8, 2007 New York, New York, United States
Nationality	American
Alma mater	The Brooklyn Museum Art School
Style	Figurative, Abstract
Movement	Abstract Expressionism

Early Life

James Frederick Juthstrom was born in the Bronx, New York to immigrant Finnish parents and had three sisters, Edith, Ruth, and Elin. He had begun paintings in his early teenage years.

Education

Juthstrom attended Samuel Gompers High School, a vocational school in East Morrisania, Bronx, where he trained to become an electrician.

In the early 1950s, James Juthstrom studied at the Brooklyn Museum Art School under Bill Kienbusch (Modernist painter, 1914-1980) and Reuben Tam (American Landscape painter, 1916-1991). Juthstrom focused his studies on life drawing and took classes from Charles Seide (1915-1980). It was also at the Brooklyn Museum Art School where Juthstrom met artist Robert Finnegan, with whom Juthstom shared a studio with on West 22nd street. After graduating, both Finnegan and Juthstrom served as monitors of classes at the school.

Career

1950s

The early figurative and life drawings Juthstrom created in the 1950s reflected an impressive ability to depict movement with life-like precision. Critically well-received by his peers, his artworks were featured in a number of group exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum Art School, where they won several awards including the Talens award (1955) and the Abraham and Straus award (1956). Juthstrom's early works were also exhibited by art institutions including The Brooklyn Museum and The Whitney Museum of American Art, where he participated in group exhibitions.

Throughout the 1950s, the artist participated in a number of group exhibitions in New York City and other American cities. At 35, Juthstrom was featured in the Young Americans exhibition at Gallery G in New York City. The exhibition also included two sculptures by Lee Bontecou as well as artworks by guest artist Romare Bearden.

In 1957, Juthstrom had his first solo exhibition at Gallery G in New York, where he showed paintings of abstracted landscapes, which received critical review in the New York Times Sunday.

In the winter of 1959, Juthstrom traveled to the Detroit Institute of Arts for their Second Biennial of American Painting and Sculpture, where he exhibited an abstracted landscape painting, Autumn's Land (1955) alongside artists such as Alex Katz and Miyoko Ito.

1960s – Late 1970s

Following his initial success in the 1950s, he found himself mentally exhausted and unable to paint. He made the decision to travel around the country in 1961-62–visiting the Hawaiian Islands, the mountains of Southern California and the highlands of the Southeast. When he returned to New York in 1965, Juthstrom leased the top floor of an abandoned, burned-out brownstone building on Broome Street and West Broadway and was able to execute all renovations on his own. Throughout the 1960s and 70s, Juthstrom shifted away from his earlier representational work, turning instead to abstracted depictions of New York’s urban landscape.

Around 1972, Juthstrom was diagnosed with an ocular melanoma, which caused his vision to gradually deteriorate. His representational paintings of urban landscapes evolved into abstract patterned mazes overlaid with mystical motifs, evoking the style of Mark Tobey and the early Fauvist work of André Derain.

By 1975, Juthstrom completed a series of fire escape paintings after he had fallen off a ladder onto an open flat file drawer. After returning from the hospital, the artist abandoned his depictions of SoHo and transitioned into pure abstraction.

Late 1970s – 1980s

Throughout the late 1970s and 1980s, Juthstrom began creating a series of complex metaphysical paintings on canvas. Juthstrom spent countless hours painting small colored circles on canvas. In addition to traditional rectangular canvases, Juthstrom also created his own irregular elliptical stretchers for his paintings. After years of experimentation in creating the ‘perfect circle’, he found that he preferred the output of Q-tips over that of paint brushes. The abstract paintings from this period were meditative and rhythmic, calling on the viewer to connect on a subconscious, spiritual level. These paintings also revealed his fascination with the cosmos, mathematical formulae and biology through his application of cryptic patterns and hidden formations–sometimes only visible under certain light. His process was quite intensive and Juthstrom would often spend months and sometimes over a year on a single piece.

In 1977, Juthstrom displayed his paintings in a group exhibition entitled, The Magic Circle, at the Bronx Museum of the Arts. The exhibition, curated by Jean Cohen, was dedicated to the form of the circle as it was represented by different American artists. Juthstrom's painting Sky Wheels (1976) was exhibited alongside artworks by artists including Alex Katz, Julius Tobias, Phyllis Mark, Leon Polk Smith, and Richard Pousette-Dart. The exhibition was extended by an additional month and a half due to large public response.

1990s

By the 1990s, Juthstrom’s vision worsened and he sunk into a reclusive depression. As his vision did not permit he continue making his intricately patterned abstract works, he began creating figurative works that depicted the memories and psychic reality he associated with his loft. These paintings are filled with surreal imagery of wood flooring, vacuous spaces and eerie figures. In the last years of his life, Juthstrom's work became a channel for sublimating his pain. Because he did not have a commercial outlet, his paintings were deeply personal and unmotivated by market trends. His trade as an electrician, through which he was able to assist other artists in lighting their studios, provided Juthstrom sparse means of support.

Juthstrom passed away in 2007 due to an ocular melanoma.

Artistic Style

Juthstrom did not typically elaborate on his artwork or its content. Although he enjoyed friendships and leisurely activities, painting was truly the focus of his existence. He would paint for long hours at a time, often into the night, and would complain about the conditions in his workspace that detracted from his ability to concentrate and see. From a brief surviving statement by the artist: "My paintings are not of a specific time or place. They are done from my imagination–of things remembered: trees, raw earth, vast deep landscapes, small earth movements."

Much of Juthstrom's early works from the 1950s were abstracted landscapes depicting large swaths of land from high vantage points. Charles Jackson writes for the 1957 program of Juthstrom's solo exhibition at Gallery G that these works "seem to be abstract arrangements in color and design, but almost at once they become landscapes too... [Juthstrom] gives us the American earth, in all its variegated, ever-changing richness (almost as if it were the sea) And because he makes us see the land as we have never seen it ourselves, through his own poetic vision and imagination, he gives us real art as well."

Once Juthstrom moved into pure abstraction in the late 1970s and 1980s, his work came to resemble some of those within the Abstract Expressionist movement. Typically, Juthstrom would cover his canvases with layers of small circles. When completed, the paintings provide a sense of cosmic depth with a mystical aura. Other artists who created similar abstract expressionist styles include Richard Pousette-Dart and Mark Rothko.

Exhibition History

Solo Exhibitions

James Juthstrom: Imagining the Cosmos, Westwood Gallery NYC (2020); James Juthstrom: Insight, Paintings from 1965-1998, Westwood Gallery NYC (2019); James Juthstrom: Paintings from the Loft, Westwood Gallery NYC (2017); James Juthstrom: Works on Paper, 1960s, Westwood Gallery NYC (2012); James Juthstrom: Paintings from the 1960s and 1970s, Westwood Gallery NYC (2011); James Juthstrom: Retrospective, Westwood Gallery NYC (2009); The Magic Circle, Landmark Gallery, New York, NY (1975); Paul Schuster Art Gallery, Cambridge, MA (1960); and Gallery G, New York, NY (1957).

Group Exhibitions

Full Circle, Westwood Gallery NYC (2013); Terrain Gallery, New York, NY (2007); The Magic Circle, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, Bronx NY (1977); Landmark Gallery, New York, NY (1977); First Annual Invitational New York Salon Show, Echo Gallery, New York, NY (1976); New England Exhibitions, New Canaan, CT (1971, 1970, 1961); Paul Schuster Art Gallery, Cambridge, MA (1965, 1956); Annual Exhibition, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA (1963, 1961, 1960, 1959); Exhibition of Finnish-American Artists, Riverside Museum, New York, NY (1963); Boston Arts Festival, Boston, MA (1960); The Brooklyn Museum, New York, NY (1960, 1958); New York City Center Art Gallery, New York, NY (1959, 1958); Second Biennial of American Painting and Sculpture, Detroit Institute of the Arts, Detroit, MI (1959); Alumni Exhibition (Abraham and Straus Award), Brooklyn Museum Art School, NY (1958,1956); Brooklyn Museum Art School, NY (1956); Young Americans, Gallery G, New York, NY (1956); Annual Exhibition of Contemporary Painting, The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY (1956); and Alumni Exhibition (Talens Award), Brooklyn Museum Art School, NY (1955).

Collections

Juthstrom's work can be found in major public collections throughout the United States, including Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City, NY; Paul Schuster Art Gallery, Cambridge, MA; Landmark Gallery, New York City, NY; Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA; Detroit Institute of the Arts, Detroit, MI; The Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY; and Gallery G, New York City, NY