About Jim Promessi

Jim is primarily a California landscape artist, although he also does figurative and still life work. His favored mediums are oil on canvas and soft pastel on paper. He prefers working in a realist manner, and considers this to be the ultimate challenge to an artist.

Artist Statement:

“I am a California Native who grew up loving its landscape, especially in Spring. My favorite months are March, April and May, when the California landscape is a most spectacular sight to behold.

Precious images from my childhood are still with me. I used to walk the East Bay foothills and remember the cool, clear sunny days with bright blue skies, green grasses, wildflowers and new green on the trees. Now, each Spring I am fortunate to revisit those images, and as an artist I seek to record California’s magnificence.”

Current & Recent Exhibitions

• Salon International 2009, a juried exhibition of oil paintings hosted by the Greenhouse Gallery of Fine Art, San Antonio, TX, April 11-May 1, 2009
• Oil Painters of America's 2008 Western Regional Juried Exhibition Devin Galleries, Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, Sept. 12 - Oct.11, 2008
• California Art Club's, est. 1909   97th Annual Gold Medal Juried Exhibition at the
  Pasadena Museum of California Art, Pasadena, CA, 2008
• 50th Anniversary Celebration, with members & alumni, The Gallery House, Palo Alto, 2008
• Oil Painters of America's 2007 Western Regional Juried Exhibiton of Traditional Oils Miniature Show, Waterhouse Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA
• Bay Area Realists, John Pence Gallery, San Francisco, CA
• Summer in San Francisco, John Pence Gallery, San Francisco, CA

Jim's museum exhibitions include the California Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco, the Triton Museum, the Pioneer Museum and Haggin Art Gallery, Crocker Art Museum, and the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art.

Jim's work was shown in the 1st and 2nd Annual California Spring Salons curated by the Edenhurst and Morseburg Galleries in Los Angeles. He has won many awards locally and nationally, such as the 1997 Grand Prize for "American Artist Magazine's" 60th Anniversary National Competition.

Collections

Publications

• "The Art of Pastel Portraiture" by Madlyn Woolwich, published in 1996 by Watson Guptill features Jim's figurative work.


• "Pastel Highlights" and "American Artists" magazine's "Collector's Edition" and "Pastel Artist International" magazine have showcased other award winning Promessi paintings.