James W. Harmon Art for Sale at Auction

b. 1915 - d. 1998

James W. Harmon, a former artist, art teacher and businessman here who founded the Art Mart art supply stores, died Thursday (Nov. 26, 1998) at a hospital in Arlington, Va., of complications from heart and lung disease. He was 83 and had lived in Arlington since 1996. He lived for many years in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, and in San Antonio. Mr. Harmon, formerly of Ladue, was born in a small mining town in Kentucky and reared in Alton. He graduated with a triple major in art, English and education from what is now Southeast Missouri State University in Cape Girardeau. He earned a master's degree in art from the University of Iowa in Iowa City. In the early 1940s, he started teaching art at University City High School. In 1952, he began his career at Horton Watkins High School in Ladue, where he helped to start the art department. He had also taught privately at Washington University. He also restored and evaluated art work. He was a gourmet cook and traveled extensively throughout the world. His works have been exhibited in Europe as well as in this country and are owned by public and private collectors and institutions. While teaching at the high school, he and his former wife, Alice C. Harmon, owned and operated Art Mart Inc., which sold an extensive array of art supplies as well as other art-related materials. It included an international gift shop. The first store, on Meramec Avenue in Clayton, housed the Harmon Gallery of Fine Art. The Art Mart became an international center for teaching art as well as a popular meeting place for artists, collectors, dealers and architects. Subsequently, four other stores were opened in St. Louis County and one in Columbia, Mo. - each with an art gallery. He resigned from teaching at the high school in 1969; in the early 1980s, he sold the stores and retired. [published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Dec 4, 1998