About the Book
About the Artist
About the Author
Sample Pages
Press Release

Artwork © James C. Christensen
© Greenwich Workshop Press

About the Book

Join the legions of fans and collectors who have made the award-winning artwork of James C. Christensen a part of their lives through his paintings, sculpture, acclaimed books and limited editions. Experience this diverse and masterful body of work in Men and Angels, the single largest collection of Christensen’s paintings ever published. This comprehensive volume brims with over 300 paintings (including many favored classics), more than 100 unpublished treasures and a selection of whimsical and inspired sketches from his private sketchbooks.

From marriage to spiritual devotion to daily pet care, no object seems mundane after it has met Christensen’s inventive brush. Applying his celebrated eye for the fantastic to people, landscapes and creatures (both real and imagined) Christensen has created a rich and strangely familiar world that will take a lifetime to explore. Each painting presents a unique glimpse into the mind of the artist and holds up a mirror to the universal trials and triumphs of our own lives.

Christensen’s career as an artist and art professor has equipped him to be a great communicator, or perhaps the fact that he is especially articulate for a visual artist has made him a master teacher. His wide-ranging commentary is as engaging as his art. The range of subject matter and style are a testament to the artist’s imagination, creativity and understanding of art history. Christensen’s drive to connect with the world weaves through his work like a ribbon, over mermaids, under saints and around hunchbacks. The paintings communicate on a level that is as personal as it is universal. Enter the realm of James C. Christensen’s Men and Angels, both human and divine!

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About the Artist

Inspired by the world's myths, fables and tales of imagination, James C. Christensen wants his work to add up to more than a beautiful—if sometimes curious-looking—work of art. Having taught art professionally for over 20 years, he likes to think of the world as his classroom. His hope is that through whatever he creates--be it a porcelain, fine art print or book—he can convey a message, inspiration or a simple laugh. He believes that teaching people to use their imagination helps us find solutions to soothe the stresses of everyday life, or get a little lift to help us keep going. In short: all things are possible when you share Christensen's philosophy that "Believing is Seeing."

Christensen was born in 1942 and raised in Culver City, California. He studied painting at Brigham Young University and, for a while, the University of California at Los Angeles, before finishing his formal education at BYU. Since then, he has had one-man shows across the country and his work is prized in collections throughout the U.S. and Europe.

The artist has been commissioned by both Time/Life Books and Omni to create illustrations for their publications and his work has appeared in the prestigious American Illustration Annual and Japan's Outstanding American Illustrators. Christensen has also won all the professional art honors the World Science Fiction Convention can bestow, as well as multiple Chesley Awards from the Association of Science Fiction and Fantasy Artists.

Christensen's fine art now appears as works of art in bronze, on canvas and paper and in several books: The Art of James Christensen: A Journey of the Imagination (1994); the adventure fantasy Voyage of the Basset - adapted for television by Hallmark's Odyssey Channel as the Voyage of the Unicorn; Rhymes & Reasons (1997), Parables (written by Robert Millet, 1999), The Personal Illumination Series and The Personal Illumination Journal (2000), a series of interactive journals and A Shakespeare Sketchbook (2001).



For a high-resolution image of the artist, click here.

Sample Pages

Press Release