Stepping into the small maritime art gallery on Water Street in Stonington, Connecticut, a visitor’s senses are immediately altered by stirring paintings of ships and yachts at sea, some in distress. J-Class yachts are rail down under full sail; a lobster boat battles a frothy rip; and a chilly colonial-era Boston waterfront is packed tightly with merchant ships in winter. Time rolls back and the era of sail, working waterfronts and steam power are once again in full bloom.
The J. Russell Jinishian Gallery is filled to the gunwales with nearly 200 paintings, carvings, sculptures, ship models and other nautical artifacts. The works are part of a carefully curated selection from J. Russell Jinishian, one of the country’s foremost experts on maritime art. The last 40 years have represented a zenith in the appreciation of maritime art. Jinishian and his gallery are important drivers of that scene.
For any salty soul looking for a break in the Sturm und Drang of modern living, the J. Russell Jinishian Gallery is a respite from the ordinary, an oasis of paintings, sculpture and other art depicting life on the water by masters of the genre.
The names of the artists are familiar: There’s Stobart, Demers, Blossom, Sarba, Mecray and dozens of others.
It can be hard to see the golden age of any period while you’re living through it. Jinishian and his longtime artists are fortunate enough to recognize that they’re living in that age right now.
“The pool of marine art that exists today is larger than at any time in history,” Jinishian says. Many well-regarded paintings that have been in private collections for years are also making their way back into the market as their owners age out.
The public’s appreciation of sailing and the sea was kicked into high gear in 1976 by Operation Sail and the bicentennial celebration of the country’s 200th anniversary. Sixteen tall ships from around the world drew the largest crowds, but hundreds of other vessels also took part in the festivities.
The striking sight of traditionally rigged ships parading along the East Coast that summer “opened people up to the maritime world in a different way,” says Jinishian, who has represented many of the most talented contemporary marine artists for 40 years. “It just raised everyone’s consciousness.”
“It was a unique time,” says painter Don Demers, who remembers sketching the tall ships when they visited Newport, Rhode Island, that summer. “I remember staring at the ships and categorizing them on a sketch pad. Length, flag, rig. I was obsessed. And at the same time all the great naval architects were designing beautiful boats.”
As pleasure boating boomed, a new crop of talented painters turned their focus on nautical themes and the post-World War II baby boomers began buying and collecting marine paintings.
“All the pieces coalesced into this movement,” Demers says. “They fell together perfectly.”
Dressed in a Hawaiian surfer shirt, shorts and colorful socks, Jinishian, 71, is a welcoming figure in a world long known for being unnecessarily stuffy.
“One of my objections to the art world in general is that it has a pretense about it, a pseudo-intellectualism,” says Maine-based Demers. And that can be standoffish to potential customers.
Jinishian slays those stereotypes with his congenial personality and plain-spoken manner of discussing art. “He understands human beings,” says Demers, 67, who credits Jinishian with jump-starting his career as a marine artist. “He’s equipped with an exceptionally strong intellect, an insatiable curiosity and insight into humans. There’s not a lot of baloney in that guy.”
Painter Marek Sarba, a former Polish Merchant Marine who has spent time at sea, is also a longtime friend of Jinishian. “He has a gift for connecting to the customers,” says Sarba, who is 79 and lives in Old Saybrook, Connecticut. “Within a short period of time, Russell developed an excellent taste in art. He knows what’s good and what’s bad.”
Jinishian is not easily categorized. He grew up in Old Greenwich, Connecticut, where he sailed and developed a love of the water. While the art dealer looks the part in a blue blazer and tie, he is by nature much more easygoing. “He’s got an eccentric side to him,” says Demers. “He’s bohemian.”
“He’s a very colorful person,” Sarba says. “He has a marvelous mess in his gallery. You need a GPS to find his desk.”
As a gift, Sarba once painted a humorous portrait of Jinishian seated at his paper-strewn desk, holding a magnifying glass in one hand and a painting in the other.
“I’m a relaxed person,” says Jinishian. “I don’t know if I can find a tie anymore, but I’m serious about what I do.”
Jinishian also enjoys getting out on the water. He has owned several small lobster-style boats, including a 22-foot Sisu. He currently owns a 1976 25-foot Mako that he keeps in the water year-round.
Jinishian has been drawn to art since he was a boy. He studied art and art history at the Sir John Cass School of Art in London and graduated from Cornell University with a bachelor’s in fine art. He wrote art criticism and reviews for a newspaper and art magazines for several years. He also served as program director for the Silvermine Guild of Artists in New Canaan, Connecticut, the oldest in the country. From 1985 to 1995, he served as the director of the Mystic Maritime Gallery at the Mystic Seaport Museum, the nation’s largest gallery specializing in marine art.
He published the Marine Art Quarterly for 13 years and ran the J. Russell Jinishian Gallery in Fairfield, Connecticut, for 22 years before relocating to Stonington in 2019. He was married to artist and teacher Patricia Lee Jinishian, who died in 2016.
Demers has known Jinishian since the early 1980s. “He was the primary architect of my career,” says the artist. “He recognized what I was capable of doing and raised the level of it.”
He also introduced the then young artist to many collectors. “He was a real networker in the most authentic way,” Demers says.
Jinishian well understands the difficulties and challenges that artists face. “What it takes is a certain level of skill and understanding your craft,” he says. “Dedication. Worth ethic. Thick-skin. It’s a tough way to make a living.
“It’s work,” Jinishian says, repeating the word for emphasis. “I look for artists committed to the art form and who work to get better. There’s some luck in there too.”
Perseverance is a given. “The artist has to stick through it no matter what comes their way,” says Jinishian. “The best guys are the ones who are always questioning themselves. They are always looking to be better and to improve. They treat every aspect of their creation with the same amount of love and concentration.”
For anyone harboring a romantic view of the lifestyle, Jinishian is apt to hand them a single sheet of paper containing a clear-eyed essay he wrote on “An Artist’s Life.” A longer version appeared as part of the forward in Jinishian’s gorgeously illustrated 2003 book Bound for Blue Water: Contemporary American Marine Art (The Greenwich Workshop Press, 184 pages).
“I think artists should be true to themselves. That’s their mission,” Jinishian says. “Then their art has some truth to it.” He adds, “I’m not a business guy, I’m an art guy.”
Jinishian, Demers and Sabra agree that water is the most difficult element to capture in a nautical painting. The movement, the reflections, the vessel moving through it.
“There are infinite ways to paint water,” Jinishian says. And when it’s not done well, the flaws are obvious. “You don’t have to have any great art knowledge to know when the water is not right.”
The public’s appetite for marine art may be ebbing as the baby boomer generation makes for the exits.
“Today, he’s the only one selling real marine art,” Sarba said. “He’s the last Mohican.”
“I’m almost the last guy left focusing on marine art,” Jinishian says.
The keys to Jinishian’s success?
“Have good stuff,” he says. “Be fair in your pricing, don’t be a jerk, and you might have a chance on my side of the business.”
Jinishian and the talented tribe of artists he represents are in no hurry to leave the stage. Many paint not for the money, but because they are compelled to make art.
“I paint,” Sabra says. “I have to paint. I am addicted to it.”
And Demers has no intention of putting away the paints. “I’m going to die of a brush stroke,” he quips.
The next generation of marine artists—if there is one—has yet to burst onto the watery scene in a significant way. “It might be a conclusion,” Demers says. “I don’t see another generation coming along.” He’s philosophical about what lays ahead. “It’s been a damn good run.”
Sabra speaks of “the magic of good art,” a subject Jinishian is adept at fleshing out from his decades working in the field. The gallery owner describes a situation that he has experienced several times.
“Someone will call and say I was in your gallery several years ago and there was a painting on the left-hand wall, and I can’t get it out of my mind. Do you still have it?” Jinishian recounts. “No one says I was in Home Depot a year ago and do you still have that refrigerator?”
When the focus is on a painting, the talk is about how I can’t get it out of my mind.
“It fills a little hole,” Jinishian says. “It’s something you need. That’s the power of art.”
Jinishian speaks with gratitude and affection for the long friendships he’s enjoyed with many of the artists he represents. They all came of age at roughly the same time and rode the surge of popularity in marine art that followed for the next several decades.
“Working with all these creative people has been great,” Jinishian says. “We’ve sort of grown up together over 40 years. I’ve known them all. They’re all my friends. I’ve had an enjoyable life. I’ll keep working until I stop.”
This article was originally published in the July 2024 issue.
