James “Jim” Voshell, an artist whose meticulous paintings and murals documented Baltimore’s hardscrabble neighborhoods, died of diabetic complications April 27 at University of Maryland St. Joseph Medical Center. He was 80 and lived in Monkton.
Morning commuters once passed his photo-realistic mural of men playing checkers at Edmondson Avenue and Franklintown Road. Despite becoming one of the city’s most acclaimed public art projects, the building on which it was painted was demolished.
Born in Saint Michaels in Talbot County, he was the son of tenant farmers James Voshell and his wife, Teresa. He was a graduate of St. Michaels High School.
“As a young kid he started doodling and drawing pictures on Sundays when his extended family gathered,” said Lynne Jones, his life partner. “He passed the drawings around and of course loved the positive feedback he got.
“There was no art taught at that time in the schools and he got his father to pay for correspondence art classes — the kind that would have been advertised on a match pack,” she said. “Jim mailed off his drawings once a month and used these to create the portfolio that got him into MICA.”
Mr. Voshell earned a scholarship to the Maryland Institute College of Art, where he graduated magna cum laude.
While at MICA he was taught by Baltimore artist and sculptor Joseph Sheppard.
“Jim was a full-time professional,” Mr. Sheppard said. “As a student, he worked all the time. He had the kind of drive that some students have and others don’t.”
Mr. Voshell initially taught in Baltimore County schools but in the early 1970s established a studio at what is now known as Power Plant Live! His quarters (at $40 a month) were located between the old city mounted police stables and the fish market.
He later moved to Frederick Avenue and Mount Street, a decaying neighborhood where he became an observer of city life.
Ron Cassie wrote in Baltimore Magazine in 2021 that Mr. Voshell was a “leading documentarian of the changing city.”
“He painted street corners, sidewalks, and bus stops as he found them: full of arabbers, balloon vendors, strippers, alcoholics, fortune tellers, cops, trash, and, at least once, a dead rodent,” Mr. Cassie wrote.
That dead rodent was depicted on a canvas and purchased by a Johns Hopkins medical researcher who studied rats in India. He hung the painting over his sofa.
Mr. Voshell was on the cover of The Sun’s Sunday Magazine in 1990 and said, “I walk around with the intention of finding images that represent the everyday type of nonpretentious involvement with life.”
Mr. Voshell left his Frederick Avenue studio and moved to Monkton in Baltimore County. He painted in a converted barn and continued to drive his beat-up 1951 Chevrolet panel truck.
“You sat on milk crates and could see the road through the floor,” said his partner, Lynne.
Once he left the city, Mr. Voshell painted scenes of nature, often of irises.
“Jim left his teaching position in 1970 but he has never stopped teaching us to see our community, the natural world, and that there is always a kind of beauty under our boot soles,” said William Waters, the author of 2021’s “James W. Voshell: His Life and Art.”
“He was a realist in every sense. Jim often said that there is a painting everywhere he would cast his eyes and that he wished he had more than one lifetime to paint them all,” Mr. Waters said. “Jim was a singular and generous man. He took great delight in sharing what he had, whether a foraged mushroom, the latest bird sighting, or the largest of Maryland crabs on his birthday.”
Fellow artist Greg Otto said: “He was one of a very small and tight group who persisted in raising the bar that represented Baltimore in a new way. They were big and bold and it was exactly what the city needed.
“He was a big, affable guy and was the first to create that style. His painting made an impression on me. It was healthy for the city to have someone like Jim,” Mr. Otto said.
One of his paintings, “The Audience,” is in the Baltimore Museum of Art.
Cecilia Wichmann, BMA associate curator of contemporary art, said: “James Voshell was a painter who lavished attention on the ordinary, the everyday, observing with great care the experiences of daily life in our city of Baltimore. The BMA is immensely proud to steward his 1983 painting ‘The Audience’ for future generations. It captures that in-between time — as people gather and wait for an Artscape concert to begin — seeing that full array of individuals together in public space. ‘The Audience’ reflects those moments of proximity that animate our cultural and civic lives.”
Survivors include his life partner, Lynne Jones, and nieces and nephews.
A life celebration will be held from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. May 29 at the Manor Mill at 2029 Monkton Road in Baltimore County.
