‘He was a phenomenal artist’: Remembering James Michaels

Painter James Michaels, an integral part of the Tampa Bay art scene for more than four decades, died Oct. 23 after a long illness. He was 78.

Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., Michaels served in te United States Air Force between 1963 and 1968. He relocated to Florida in 1971 and worked as a commercial artist for the Tampa Tribune; overseeing the look and design of the Sunday magazine Florida Accent, and creating topical cartoons for the editorial pages. He left the “corporate” world in 1980 to focus on his art.

“It was more of a heart decision,” said Michaels’ wife of 53 years, Julie. “It was ‘yes, I’m a commercial artist and I’m pretty good at it. But it’s not satisfying my soul, and for the rest of my life I want to do something that’s in my heart.’”

Michaels was an artist of sharply contrasting influences; his work was stylistically diverse. He painted in oils and acrylics, and his portfolio included abstracts, still lifes, moody self-portraits, colorful, nostalgic “pop” expressionist art – and realistic monochromatic works he called “painterly realism,” based in part on the stark, stern character studies of the Old Masters. With modern applications and subjects.

“15 Men,” oil on canvas, 1992.

“Self Portrait with Still Life,” oil on board, 1996.

He began the latter after a painful back injury kept a brush out his hands for several months. “He was always a student of art history,” Julie Michaels said. “So when he was laid up for a long time, he got out his art history books and just looked at all the pictures, and read all the stories, and it inspired him to do that.”

According a catalog published by the Polk Museum of Art, where a major exhibition of Michaels’ work was shown in 2006, Michaels drew from the works of primarily Italian and Spanish artists from 1500-1650, such as Caravaggio, Ribera, Tintoretto, Titian and Velasquez.  

In 1986, he received a national fellowship from the Awards in the Visual Arts. Michaels also received the Best of Show award at the Gasparilla Festival of the Arts, and an Individual Artist Fellowship from the State of Florida.

Collectors Tom and Mary James, owners of the James Museum of Western & Wildlife Art, own more than 100 Michaels canvases. In 2018, one of the then-new art museum’s first exhibits was James Michaels: An American Pop Life.

“Popeye Picasso,” acrylic on canvas, 1998.

The sometimes whimsical works combined images from American history with images from American pop culture – 1950s toys and cartoon characters. His “Popeye Picasso” equates a Picasso-esque man’s face with the blue visage of Huckleberry Hound.

In “The American West, Western Series No. 1,” Michaels created a checkerboard of iconic faces from the Old West – a combination of real-life cowboys and Native Americans and characters from TV and the movies.

“Jim was a painter, and what he cared about most was the painting,” explained Julie Michaels. “The images were secondary to the fact that he was a painter, and he was going to paint the absolute best picture that he could paint. The images were just a way to get to that great painting.”

Emily Kapes, Curator of Art at the James Museum, said An American Pop Life was an impactful early milestone for the facility. “Jim was an important pop artist, and he was a fixture in our area. He was at all the shows. He was at all the festivals.

“The exhibit was such a cross-section of his career, with all sort of styles and series. We had 40 paintings in the show. But he never saw it. He was too ill to attend. He only saw it through Julie’s photographs, and the photos that we sent to him.

“He was a phenomenal artist. And I hate that we lost him.”

Arrangements for a public memorial are being discussed, and will be announced at a future date.

“The American West Western Heritage Series No. 1,” 1997, oil on canvas. This image is usually found near the entrance to the James Museum’s “New West” Gallery. It will return upon the completion of the present exhibit, “From Far East to West: The Chinese American Frontier,” in early 2024.