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James Britton (1878-1936) was a portrait painter, art critic, and editor. His papers include 49 diaries dating from 1918-1935, plus notebooks of diary excerpts, that chronicle Britton's daily activities and include lists, illustrations, and drafts of correspondence.
Britton's diaries cover a wide-range of subjects including current affairs and his thoughts about American art and artists, the art scene in New York and Connecticut, classical music, the Great Depression, Prohibition, the Catholic Church, politics, his artwork and writings, his professional associations, New York galleries and exhibitions, and his relationships with family and friends. The diaries also include lists and sketches, including sketches of paintings in his studio at the time of the diary entry. The diaries provide an intimate and descriptive perspective of the Great Depression and its effect on the American family. Hard economic times forced Britton to reuse his children's school composition notebooks as diaries, often writing in the margins or in between the original lines of writing. He describes the toll of the economy on his relationship with his family.
The diaries contain exhaustive detail about the New York art scene and his fellow artists. He writes about George Bellows, Childe Hassam, Ernest Blumenschein, among many others, and about visiting numerous galleries, museums, and exhibitions, such as Knoedler, Frank Rehn, and Kraushaar Galleries, as well as his membership in various clubs and associations, including the New Society of American Artists.
