AII - Artist - Akston 2

During the 1960s and '70s the entrepreneur-artist James Joseph Akston adopted a unique Surreal-Expressionist style in order to present his private primordial universe and lampoon its denizens - a ribald cast of animal creatures with human foibles. A successful industrialist, he began his career with General Motors foreign operations and then started his own business. Intermittently he studied painting, first with Jerry Farnsworth in North Truro and then With Orozco in Mexico. In the early 1960s Akston became publisher-editor of a group of art publications which included the prestigious magazine Arts. Initially an abstractionist, Akston had one man exhibitions at the New York Convention Center, the Corcoran Museum in Washington, D, C., the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach and in Europe. Akston produced work in several mediums, painting most often with a palette knife, sculpting with both bronze and Plexiglas and supervising the weaving of tapestries made after his designs both in France and Spain. His work may be found in collections in the United States and abroad. His books include Beginning of the Beginning: An Unfolding Story About How Nature and Life Evolved On Our Planet (Harry N. Abrams, Inc. New York, 1970.) In its introduction James A. Michener wrote: "Akston's painting relates [to] the fierce coloring of Hans Hofmann, the bold techniques of Jackson Pollock, the human figures of Philip Evergood [and] the symbolism of Frank Lobell…"