James Brereton

James Brereton studied at the Joseph Wright Art School in Derby. He spent most of the 1970s in a job he disliked in the gas industry but continued painting during his spare time. By 1979 James was selling enough of his paintings to give up his job and become a professional artist. His interest in ships and the sea was growing and took precedent over the wide variety of subjects he had painted in the past. These marine works were strongly influenced by the great marine painters Thomas Somerscales and Montague Dawson. James sailed before the mast on the Sir Winston Churchill schooner belonging to the Sail Training Association in the 1990s. This was an exhilarating experience which proved him with much inspiration.