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James Bonar was born in Dumferline, Scotland in 1864. In 1885 he moved to Pittsburgh and worked for a time as a mechanical engineer for the Carnegie Steel Company. There he came to know Andrew Carnegie as a friend and associate, and like that well-known philanthropist, Bonar became an active supporter of the arts in Pittsburgh. With his associate John L. Porter he was a founder of the One Hundred Friends of Pittsburgh Art, and for nine of the years between 1911 and 1921 he served as president of the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh.
When the United States entered the First World War in 1917, Bonar designed a patriotic recruitment poster named The Incentive. It was selected by artist Charles Dana Gibson, creator of the "Gibson Girl," on behalf of the U. S. Government's division of pictorial publicity. As described in the Pittsburgh Sun, the poster drew on Pittsburgh's industry, and depicted processions of soldiers and workmen moving toward a brilliant yellow background, out of which emerged the figure of the Goddess of Liberty.
A self-taught artist, Bonar drew his subject matter from the industries of his adopted home of Pittsburgh. Described as "a businessman who pursues art as a pastime," his painting was confined mostly to weekends and holidays, or when he had some time away from his official duties as Superintendent of Buildings for the Pittsburgh Board of Education. A frequent exhibitor at the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh's annual shows, his work was also displayed in exhibitions at the Corcoran Galleries in Washington, Philadelphia's Memorial Hall, and the St. Louis Art Museum. A number of his paintings were displayed in the Board of Education Building in Pittsburgh, as well. James Bonar, an acquaintance of Dean Steidle, contributed some of the first paintings to be added to the collection. These include The Lucy Furnaces along the Allegheny River, painted by the artist especially for the school and presented in May 1932, and Schollenberg Rolling Mill Dismantled, an earlier work from 1917, which was presented sometime before May 1935.
Sources:
Brignano, Mary. The Associated Artists of Pittsburgh, 1910-1935, The First Seventy-Five Years. Pittsburgh: Associated Artists of Pittsburgh, 1985.
Chew, Paul. Southwestern Pennsylvania Painters. Greensberg, Pa.: The Westmoreland County Museum of Art, 1989, p. 18.
Falk, Peter Hastings (edit.). Who Was Who in American Art. Madison, CT: Sound View Press, 1985.
"School Receives Picture," Mineral Industries, vol. 1, no. 8, May 1932, p. 2.
This document copyright © 1996,
Eric John Schruers