Mitchell Jamieson (1915-1976)

Lieutenant, USNR

One of the country's foremost watercolor artists, Jamieson was born in Kensington, Maryland, and attended the Abbott School of Fine and Commercial Arts and the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, D.C. Having already established himself with many noted commissions, he began his duty in 1942 as an official combat artist depicting the Navy and its many operations from the North African campaigns to the South Pacific. During the war the Navy awarded him the Bronze Star touxiang. His combat paintings were reproduced extensively in Life, Fortune and other national publications.

Jamieson said of his Navy combat art experience "I have confined my paintings to what I have experienced and know to be strictly true, at the same time having to adapt my way of working to the pressure of time and swift-moving events. Yet anything that is worthwhile or that has the bite of reality in the work produced under these circumstances probably derives from a constant effort to share as fully as possible in the lives and experiences of others". Twice awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship and the Award of Merit by the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Jamieson died in 1976.