Current Exhibition
James Kimberly, during his fifth year as a university professor of Sociology, began painting. His first painting was of boats in fog. His early work was entirely realistic. In addition to the boats, he painted a small, deserted railroad station on the Oklahoma prairie, the California coastline, and a rose in a vase.
Professional demands prevented painting for about three years, and then he began to paint again. He knew almost nothing about color at the time. After a series of canvases which he considered failures, he discovered Johannes Itten, the great colorist. He studied Itten’s work in great detail. This introduced him to color harmony, and most of his canvases in this second period are explorations of color harmony. 
From Itten, he learned how to use complements of pure colors mixed with gray to bring the complement to the same value (light-darkness) as the pure color. This pulls both colors, which before the use of the gray were initially different in value and stood out different degrees from the canvas, flat onto the canvas. The result is what he calls resonation of the painting (very slight suggestion of movement). This technique is used in a number of his paintings in his second period.
The structures of his paintings in the second period were geometric. It was during this period that he received significant recognition of his work. The Nebraska Arts Council conducts annual competitions for inclusion of single paintings in state-wide shows. The Arts Council provided jurors for the shows. He had three paintings accepted for inclusion in three statewide shows.
Also during this period, a show named for Fred Wells, conducted annual competitions for the showing of single paintings. This competition covered ten mid-western states. He had three paintings accepted for inclusion in three of the ten-state shows. Judges for the these competitions were all curators of art museums.
