When viewing the water colors of James Drumond Herbert if you don't look you don't see the perfect blue used for a maiden's gown, the boldly executed line defining the figure, or the experimental translucent wash in the foreground. The artist through his experienced hand takes you on a visual journey amidst aspiring dancers, renaissance nobles, and pensive actresses. Using pigment, water, and paper Herbert in a masterful orchestration seduces the viewers.

James Drummond Herbert spent a lifetime perfecting the ideal stroke, the best saturation point, and the gentlest line. A native New Yorker, he received his art training in New York City in the 1920's graduating from Columbia University and studying painting and sculpture at the Art Students' League. Summers were spent in Paris at the Julien Academy. The young artist came under the influence of the eminent academic artist - Kenneth Hayes Miller known for his emphasis on careful attention to technique and form. Additional exposure to Robert Henri gave Herbert insight into the Ash Can philosophy of urban scapes in loose, fast stroked oils. As a result of these experiences Herbert emerges as an artist with an integrated academic and modern approach. He joined other artist-illustrators in New York at the time who successfully negotiated a commercial and fine arts career. While Herbert worked in the art department at the prestigious advertising firm of Calkins and Holden, he managed to have several significant exhibits. Among them, the Salon d'Auton in Paris, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, Chicago Art Institute, the GRD studio, and Louis Bouche Gallery in New York.

In 1947 Herbert left New York and accepted a teaching position at the Rhode Island School of Design. His work continued to be praised by art critics in Rhode Island as it had in New York. Bradford Swan in a 1950 Providence Evening Bulletin review commented that Herbert had a "fluent water color sketch technique which the artist has obviously mastered and can use as he desires." He was also listed in American Art Annual Volume XXX, 1933 and Who's Who in American Art in 1953, 1956, 1959, and 1962. The most impressive legacy that Herbert left behind however, is not his impressive resume, but the body of subtle visual images which only belong to him, the marks of one artist's hand, the perception of one individual's world, the marriage of artistic technique and personal inspiration.

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