“Jim Grabowski crossed his arms, the fingers of one hand enclosing a delicate, fan-shaped paintbrush, and summed up his career as an artist.
‘I paint things nobody else paints… my way,’ said the man whose robust, black-bearded appearance is as solid as the work he produces.
Grabowski assembles collages. He combines acrylic backgrounds with whatever material interests him, from sea fans to wallpaper and gold foil.
His works appear in several corporate board rooms, including Pratt & Whitney Group, where a diptych — art created on two panels — hangs behind the chairman’s seat at the head of the table. His work also hangs in major galleries in the Northeast, and he often receives commissions from businesses or private parties to create a work for display in a special place.
Grabowski’s typically 30-inch by 40-inch works combine shades of gold and brown and touches of blue or red with bits of fabric and white lines. The strong earth colors and Grabowski’s sense of form and design produce a unified effect.
Among other artists, Grabowski’s work inspires either admiration or disdain. One artist from a neighboring town, who wouldn’t identify herself, said she and another artist friend had watched Grabowski demonstrate his technique at a workshop. The two, who declared they could do as well, set to work the next morning with materials and paint.
By noon, the two friends were on the telephone with one another to confess they weren’t satisfied with what they had done.
‘At one time I had about five imitators, but I was in a certain stage and when I grew and moved on, they were left behind,’ Grabowski said.
For 15 years, since he left teaching at the Institute of Living in Hartford to become a full-time artist, Grabowski has designed his collages. Over the years they have changed. ‘I work closer to the surface now,’ Grabowski said.
Grabowski, 38, began his form of art as a way of adding physical depth to his work without using ‘a lot of thick paints.’
‘I wanted to break from a flat surface,’ he said.
A few years ago, he used thicker material that stood away from the surface, such as thick cords, heavy net or wrinkled fabric. Now, the paint and materials form a stronger, unified design because the surface is much flatter, Grabowski said.
‘Even though the style changes, the feeling is there. People recognize the work as the kind of thing I do,’ Grabowski said.
The artist’s eyes light up when Hartford’s office building boom is mentioned.
‘Corporations are shedding their old images; they like something interesting hanging on their walls. They’re getting rid of pictures of the USS Constitution. Now it’s ‘make a statement for my company’ kind of attitude,” Grabowski said. Corporate commissions bring from $2,500 to $6,000 for Grabowski.
Grabowski never tires of his work.
‘My work is a part of me, more than most things that other people do. I have to drive myself away, I have family obligations,’ Grabowski said.
When he quit teaching to work as a full-time artist, Grabowski said he worked 16 to 20 hours a day. ‘I had to make up for lost time. This was my apprenticeship.’
Grabowski said he pursued his own course of study. ‘Whatever I learned, I learned my way. I’m more possessive of what I’ve learned,’ he said.
When something new and important happens at his easel, Grabowski said he feels as if a breath of fresh air has invaded his work. However, his inspiration usually is attached to a solid background.
‘Everything comes as a matter of previous effort,’ Grabowski said.”
-Excerpt and images courtesy of Newspapers.com, The Hartford Courant, “He Assembles Collages …and Does It His Way,” by Jan Tomas, January 13, 1983
CORPORATIONS HELP THIS ARTIST SHOW A PROFIT
“When corporations first became interested in contemporary art, James L. Grabowski decided there was no future in making $100 paintings for private living rooms. He began working on larger canvases.
Now Grabowski’s ‘conservative abstract’ acrylics and collages stand out among the hundreds of paintings by Connecticut artists decorating the walls of corporations, banks, lawyers’ offices and accountants’ suites.
Grabowski got in on the ground floor because he saw the booming market in corporate art coming as early as seven years ago. ‘Corporations are the new patrons of the arts,’ the Marlborough artist said. ‘They are the only ones who can afford art today.’
Grabowski said that before New York corporations began moving into the area, local companies tended to hang historical photographs on their walls, if anything. But ‘when Otis Elevator moved to its Farmington offices in 1977, we in Hartford wanted to show that we were art conscious,’ Grabowski said , ‘and the way to do this was through sculpture and paintings.’
‘When you put up a new building, you have to put in contemporary art in order to be consistent,’ he said. ‘One thing follows another. There is an influx of new people and the suburbs are changing. People want to look progressive and mirror the times.’
‘I’ve seen the whole market change in the 15 years that I have been a working artist,’ he said. ‘I didn’t believe an artist could make a living by painting, but I have been for the past 15 years. It’s not a hobby.’
Grabowski, a graduate of Central Connecticut State College, taught in West Hartford and Hartford public schools before becoming an artist full time, He now produces one large canvas and several small pieces each week, and his paintings have been purchased by hundreds of businesses and corporations on the East Coast. ‘Most of the large corporations in Hartford have my work,’ he said. It is also sold through galleries in New York, Boston and Washington, D.C.
One of his large paintings is in By DORIS WinTBECK Courant Staff Writer When corporations first became interested in contemporary art, James L. Grabowski decided was no future in making $100 paintings for private living rooms. He began working on larger canvases.
One of his large paintings is in the lobby of the Barclay Bank in Manhattan. Among the Connecticut corporations owning his work are IBM in Farmington, Culbro Realty Co. in Hartford, The Stanley Works in New Britain, Otis Elevator in Farmington, Combustion Engineering in Bloomfield and Greater Hartford Cable Television.
‘There’s no feeling like having a painting in a prominent public area where it’s being seen by thousands of people,’ Grabowski said.
As the demand for Grabowski’s work has grown, his paintings have become larger and more expensive. A large diptych, purchased by a Pratt & Whitney executive, cost $3700, but most of his pieces are in the $2,500 range.
Even though he has produced hundreds of paintings, his work has become more refined and more sophisticated, in his opinion, ‘I do what is pleasing to me,’ he said. ‘It appeals to my organic sense. I’m not making any social statements. People have told me they don’t like abstract art, but when they are exposed to my work, they like it.’
‘There aren’t that many people doing abstract art today,’ he said. ‘Most of them are doing representational work because the state is ultra-conservative.’
Grabowski works with architects, interior designers and corporate heads of buildings that are being built or redesigned. ‘I do a lot of research, visiting the sites to find out what their requirements are and doing preliminary sketches,’ he said. Then he sits down in front of his easel and goes through ‘a limbering up process to get in the mood for new color combinations.’
‘Going from blues and greens to browns or mauve is like culture shock,’ he said. ‘I push the colors around on the canvas with the brush to get used to them before starting a piece.’
-Excerpt and images courtesy of Newspapers.com, The Hartford Courant, “Corporations Help This Artist Show a Profit,” by Doris Whitbeck, October 3, 1982
ART CONSULTANTS: NEW ENTREPRENEURS SERVE BUSINESSES
“‘I don’t care what it is as long as it has a boat in it.’ Those are the orders art consultants used to hear from businesses in the process of renovating their offices or moving into new quarters.
But today, corporate art buyers are much more sophisticated. They won’t settle for seascapes, ducks on the horizon or red barns. They are purchasing abstract paintings and prints, fiberwork, tapestries and sculpture.
A half dozen art galleries and consultants offer their services to Connecticut corporations, whether they merely want to cover their walls or purchase art that will appreciate in value.
One of the consultants, Joseph F. Mulready Jr., president of Prime Art Limitline in Hartford, ‘starts with the top of the line’ but can also provide posters and reproductions if that is what the client wants. Mulready, who represents about 50 local artists, often buys fine paintings at estate liquidations for his clients.
‘When we are talking investment quality, we believe we should get it at auction or through a wholesaler so the client gets art at below the retail cost,’ Mulready said. ‘In some cases, we work with New York galleries, but that is buying at retail prices.’
‘Finding artists is the easiest part,’ said Mulready, who became an art consultant two years ago after giving up his job as a professor of music at the University of Hartford’s Hartt School Of Music.
Among the artists he represents are Karen Petersen, a painter and sculptor; Janet Sorokin, a printmaker; Robert Luvall and Richard Bryzosowski, both painters; and Michael Brodie, a photographer. Mulready also has access to the works of such famous artists as Miro and Salvador Dali. Clients wishing to acquire works by Hudson River painters such as Charles Burchfield and Childe Hassam, or the American impressionist William Paxton, can be obliged.
Mulready said both the current recession and the high cost of corporate moves have affected the art market. ‘People are looking for lower quality art, something to cover the walls,’ he said.
‘In one case, a company put off purchasing because it was laying off employees. You can’t put a $20,000 painting up on the wall over the desk of a secretary you have just fired.’
But when tenants begin moving into three new office buildings now rising in downtown Hartford, Mulready expects his services will be in demand. ‘Right now, I’m looking to establish long-term relationships,’ he said.
Mary Wehren, another Hartford-based corporate art consultant, characterizes Connecticut’s taste in art as ‘pretty traditional.’
But Wehren, a corporate art consultant who represents about 15 local artists, has placed abstract art in lobbies and conference rooms.
‘I find out what the budget is, what size the painting should be and what type is preferred,’ Wehren said. Based on that information, she selects several paintings and gives her client the opportunity to see how they look on the wall of his office.
When the Hartford National Bank renovated its Elmwood branch recently, Wehren provided six paintings by Daryl Johnson of Stamford for the general banking area. Pratt & Whitney Aircraft in East Hartford is redoing a number of offices and has purchased paintings by several of the artists Wehren represents.
‘I try to show potential customers that they don’t have to go to New York galleries to find good art,’ Wehren said. She sells paintings signed by artists like Charles Gruppe, Eddie Hicks and Melissa Merredith. The price of the art Wehren has to offer begins at $400. Pratt purchased a pair of 44-inch square paintings with a $3,700 price tag. The artist is James L. Grabowski, Wehren’s husband.
Unlike Wehren, Judy Birke, corporate art consultant for Munson Gallery in New Haven, finds that corporations are becoming more contemporary in their art preferences. She commissions artists to do pieces such as the 30-foot wool wall hanging by Ethel Berger for the lobby of the Colonial Bank’s Main Street office in downtown Hartford. She also finds paintings appropriate for specific areas.
Birke, who studied art at Alfred University in New York, has been advising corporations on their art purchases for eight years and recently merged her business with the Munson Gallery in New Haven.
Her customers buy art to project an image, to provide an aesthetic environment for employees and, often, to support artists and art in general.
‘Because corporations have to please a number of people, they look at art differently than the individual art purchaser,’ Birke said. ‘It has to be easy to live with.’
Birke works with designers and architects for corporations that are renovating or building new facilities. ‘Generally, they are looking to complement interiors. They are looking for quality art but they are not concerned with investment.’
When Connecticut Bank & Trust Co. opened its division headquarters on the 10th floor of 900 Chapel St. in New Haven, Birke helped pick out 30 or 35 paintings for the executive offices and the reception area.
For the Connecticut Savings Bank corporate headquarters in New Haven, the art consultant provided a 15-foot wool weaving — a three-dimensional aerial view of New Haven — by Joy Wulke.
Birke, who keeps abreast of the work being done throughout the country, finds this state to be ‘an incredible source of fine art and artists.'”
-Excerpt and image courtesy of Newspapers.com, The Hartford Courant, “Art Consultants: New Entrepreneurs Serve Businesses,” by Doris Whitseck, October 3, 1982
James Grabowski, a native of New Britain, Connecticut, received his Bachelor’s degree and a Masters in education from Central Connecticut State University. After leaving Central, he taught elementary school art for six years, then taught for another three at The Institute of Living in Hartford. He left there in 1970 when he realized he was selling his work as quickly as he could produce it. So he pursued his true passion, which he said was, “Painting, painting, painting.” For the last thirty years, Jim has devoted himself exclusively to his art, which he creates in his studio in Connecticut, where he lives with his family. In each of his large and dynamic paintings, Jim seeks to reflect the values of his clients, to interpret their aspirations, and to enhance their working environments. Although known primarily as a painter of expansive abstract canvases, filled with bold color and motion, Grabowski’s work also includes impressionistic landscape paintings that are quieter, often inspired by the Connecticut countryside.
