[1] In 1926, he moved to New York, where he worked as a commercial letterer and display artist and attended night classes at the Art Students League.

These include the only original surviving mural: "Labor and Leisure", a 1938 work in New Jersey's Little Falls Civic Center.

Based in Cairo, he traveled to Palestine; Benghazi, Libya; and other parts of Egypt during this time, photographing American military camps, the aftermath of combat, and locals.

[4] According to art critic Carter Ratcliff,[6] "His concern has always been to create painterly accidents of the kind that allow buried personal meanings to take on visibility."

Brooks had their undamaged house barged to Springs and installed on an 11-acre parcel on Neck Path close to Pollock's home.

[11][12][13] Smithsonian Institution Research Information System; Archival, Manuscript and Photographic Collections, James Brooks