James Brereton studied at the Joseph Wright Art School in Derby. He spent most of the 1970s in a job he disliked in the gas industry but continued painting during his spare time. By 1979 James was selling enough of his paintings to give up his job and become a professional artist. His interest in ships and the sea was growing and this took precedent over the wide variety of other subjects he had painted in the past. These marine works were strongly influenced by the great marine painters Thomas Somerscales and Montague Dawson. James sailed before the mast on the Sir Winston Churchill schooner belonging to the Sail Training Association in the 1990s. This was an exhilarating experience which provided him with much inspiration.The artist’s works are illustrated in Denys Brook-Hart’s book on Twentieth Century Marine Paintings and also E.H.H. Archibald’s Dictionary of Sea Painters of Europe and America. James himself owns a large collection of books on shipping and yachting subjects and is an authority in this genre. Currently, nearly all James’ works are of marine subjects and they are often painted on a large scale in oil as he believes ‘the vast ocean is often best captured on a big canvas’. His largest commission to date has been a pair of canvases measuring 65 x 87 inches, each of Omani Dhows, which now hang in a fine palace.
James has exhibited widely in England, including showing at the Royal Society of Marine Artists in London. One of his paintings was requested to be retained from the annual RSMA exhibition for the Boat Show by the president of the RSMA, Geoff Hunt. His paintings have been sold to many private collectors both here and abroad and many have been reproduced on book covers and in articles, particularly in the USA. His highly successful debut exhibition at Burlington Paintings was in March 2005 and his next show there begins on 12th March, 2008.
