James Newell

American painter James Michael Newell was born into a large Irish family and was best known for his fresco murals. His birth name was James Erbin Newell but he changed it when becoming an artist. Newell studied painting in Paris at Académie Julian, and then fresco at the École des Beaux-Arts. He and his second wife, Mardy Allen, researched Renaissance frescoes in Italy. He then painted mainly murals depicting the social scenes of his country in lobbies in Washington, DC.

During the Great Depression following the stock market crash of 1929, Newell was supported by the U.S. government, receiving numerous commissions for murals in government buildings. One of Newell’s best-known works was eight murals titled The History of Western Civilization, at Evander Childs High School in 1938, showing people’s life in the Bronx. The murals show primitive man building his society, youth migrating from it to new lands, the meeting and mingling of tribes, the clashing of eastern culture and scientific knowledge with western force, building knowledge and ideas of law and democracy.

His submitted work Archers was a fresco. It is possible that it was not classified as a painting, but rather in the category of “drawings and watercolors”. A fresco in the Grand Salon of the American Foundation of the Cité Internationale Universitaire de Paris is titled Sport. It shows dancers, horsemen and archers in front of the Parthenon. It was created in 1929 - 1930 in the Art Deco style as one of a total of 6 frescoes. The Sports fresco praises the athletic culture of American universities and the ideal of an ancient Greek city. The overall design was by French painter Robert La Montagne Saint-Hubert (1887-1950), who was assisted by Ethel Wallace (1885-1968) and James Newell. Whether this is really the submitted work could not be confirmed.