[1][2] Born in Iowa City, Iowa, Claussen received a bachelor’s in fine arts in painting and printmaking from the Kansas City Art Institute where he was a student of William Wind McKim who was a student of Thomas Hart Benton.
Claussen’s lithographs appear as illustrations in books including The Sea Within Us by Lawrence Ferlinghetti and the California Society of Printmakers: One Hundred Years, 1913-2013 [4][5] and on magazine covers including New Letters: A Magazine of Fine Writing.
Claussen’s work is also displayed in the Oakes-Wood House in Iowa City which is the former home of lithographer and painter Grant Wood.
[12] The Seattle Times calls Claussen’s lithographs “great precision of line and texturing and an imagery markedly different from the abstract images of most contemporary printmakers.” [13] According to the Kansas City Star, Claussen operates at “a high level of care and craft.” The Star describes Claussen’s work as “gentle surrealism” which means “pictures formed of accumulated and disparate images that seem to float through a field of ether.” [14] New Letters: a Magazine of Fine Writing quotes Claussen as saying “as objective as the realism of drawn objects may seem, their meaning is ruled by the imaginative eye.” [15] Claussen’s lithographs have been reproduced in numerous media outlets including San Francisco magazine, San Jose Mercury News, Oakland Tribune, Iowa Press-Citizen, Saint Joseph Gazette and Artslant magazine.
[16][17][18][19] “Profile of James Claussen,” Artslant magazine, accessed January 25, 2019 James Claussen: Selected Artist, Prints: CA, LA and Beyond, Part 2, juried by Michelle Murillo, California Society of Printmakers, February 13 – 28th, 2015, accessed March 3, 2019.