James Preston

James Preston studied with Thomas Anshutz at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, where he became friends with John Sloan, Robert Henri, Everett Shinn, and William Glackens. After moving to New York, he exhibited alongside his Philadelphia friends at the Union Club and in the Armory Show. He married May Wilson Watkins, an artist and illustrator who had studied with Henri and Sloan at the Art Students League. The Prestons traveled to Paris regularly, and James Preston's landscape paintings reflect the influence of French Impressionism.