James K. Ryan, Jr. is a Greenwich native who pursued a 20 year career in surveying and map-making prior to returning to his first calling of marine and landscape art. Mr. Ryan studied painting at the University Of Connecticut School Of Fine Arts, Storrs, CT. and has continued his studies on his own. His awards have included Best in Show in the 2011 Mavis Fenner Memorial Juried Exhibition at the Rowayton Arts Center, First Place Acrylic in the 2012 and 2014 Rowayton Arts Center Marine & Coastal Exhibition, Second Place Acrylic in the 2014 Art Society of Old Greenwich Open Juried Art Show, the Fleet Bank Purchase Award, Second Place Oil/Acrylic in the 2012 Art Society of Old Greenwich Spring Awakenings Show, Second Place Acrylic in the 2012 33rd Community Sponsored Awards Exhibition at the Rowayton Arts Center, First Place Acrylic Award at the Art Society of Old Greenwich and Honorable Mention at the New Canaan Society for the Arts Spectrum 2008 Juried Show.
He has been accepted by the Screening Committee of the Greenwich Art Society to hold one person exhibitions and by the Screening Committee of the Rowayton Arts Center as a full exhibiting member. Mr. Ryan spends a good deal of time traveling the Connecticut coastline in search of subject matter. When a promising subject is found he will sketch and photograph it in the field. This information is later used in his studio to produce the small, detailed, acrylic paintings on which he is currently concentrating. In addition to the area around Greenwich his favorite sites are in Stonington and Mystic, CT. He is a member of the Art Society of Old Greenwich, and the Rowayton Arts Center. He has works in private collections in San Francisco, CA, Southampton, MA, Greenwich, CT and London, England. His paintings have been shown in galleries in Nantucket, MA. and Annapolis, MD.