James Chaffee

In the 1950’s, when Bay Area painters turned away from abstract expressionism and began painting the figure, it was not the figure painted by the old Cezanne configuration—using the figure as a pivotal character in a narrative scene—but rather, using the figure more as a compositional element or “spatial counter.” James Chaffee, an enthusiastic student of Bay Area Figuration, works with the figure in much the same way as these mid-Century Bay Area artists.

Born in Detroit, Chaffee studied art and design at Michigan State University where he earned his Fine Arts degree, with a focus on painting and design. In the 1970’s, Chaffee moved to California where he pursued graduate studies and taught art before embarking on a career in design and editorial art—first at The San Jose Mercury News and later at The Sacramento Bee. It was after several years, that Chaffee left The Bee to take on painting full-time.

Turning to the task of painting presented challenges for Chaffee, not only in subject matter and scale, but also in working with oils.

“All of my editorial art was done in pen, ink, and watercolor,” Chaffee explains. “’Illustrate’ comes from the same root word as ‘illuminate,’ which is to make clear, so all of the work was completely narrative.”

In moving to figurative painting, Chaffee set himself the task of working away from tight compositions of narrative work towards more abstracted images and backgrounds, and with less articulated figures.

Although influenced by several of the Bay Area figurative painters, Chaffee credits Richard Diebenkorn with having a significant impact on his passion and work. It was Diebenkorn’s Sleeping Woman and Yellow Porch that stuck him most forcibly and re-ignited his passion for painting.

In the compositions of Chaffee’s new series, the careful balance of simple forms, the gentle contours of the figures, and especially the close tonal values, give the paintings a restful quality, a quiet dignity. The texture adds to this sense of harmony. The figures are anonymous and timeless, Chaffee suggests, and can evoke stories of a deep interior life. Or, in Rudolph Steiner’s term, an “inner necessity.”