July 2009 - Scvportland.org

July 2009 Page 11his half brother, George E. Pickett, Jr., came west to visit him. No one knowswhat transpired but apparently there was some words exchanged aboutJimmie’s Indian blood which he never forgave Young George. There is norecord of any further meeting between the two young men.Although there was never any invitation given to join his Virginia family, inlater years LaSalle Pickett was so impressed with her stepson’s art ability, sheoffered to bring him east for additional formal art training, which Jimmie declined.It is interesting to note that in a book written in 1908, nineteen yearsafter James T. Pickett’s death, by LaSalle Pickett that her stepson was presentedas being a “gift” from a grateful Indian chief to George Pickett. Thismay have been what George had told her or her way of dealing with the prospectof a half breed stepson. Also the marriage of Morning Mist and the birthof James “Jimmie” Pickett seem carefully omitted from many biographies andlinage charts of the Pickett family.Finishing his art studies, Jimmie took a position as an artist for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and later with the PortlandOregonian, as both artist and occasional reporter. Some of his drawingsappeared in advertising copy. Additionally he painted seafaring scenes,landscapes, and portraits. Indeed, Jimmie Pickett became quite the artist.Several of his paintings may be found today in the museums ofWashington.Jimmie never married and all records indicate that he had few friends.He was said to feel keenly society’s stigma of his mixed blood parentage.At the same time he was recognized among his art peers as beingan exceptional artist. In adulthood, he became a brooding artist, regardinghis painting as “his children.”By the summer of 1889, Jimmie was a sick young man. He was livingin a boarding house kept by a Mrs. Jones. By August, he was sickOil painting of Mount Rainier by James Pickett in theWhatcom Museum of History and Art, Bellingham, WAJames Pickett’s graveCharcoal "death portrait" of Edna Mae Young byJames Pickett, 1885with a combination of TB, then known as consumption and typhoid.Still he worked on his last painting with a fanatical zeal. He said itwould be his masterpiece. It was the painting of a shipwreck, probablySketch of Mt. Rainier, 1881the S. S. Alaskan wrecked off the Alaskan coast. Mostof the crew was lost, and when the survivors werebrought into Portland, they went to the Jones boardinghouse. Here they told their stories to Jimmie as hepainted. Before he died, he completed the picture, andhad it brought to his bedside, along with his father’ssword. There…on August 28, 1889, thirty one year oldJames Tilton Pickett died. His shipwreck picture wassold for the almost unheard of sum of $600 for a Localpainting, to pay for board and funeral expenses. Thesword has never been found.For a relative unknown, in anarea far removed from the acceptedcenter of the arts, JamesTilton Pickett left his mark asan artist in the Northwest. Severaldays after his death, the painter was remembered in eulogy by David Wexler in the PortlandOregonian. Running almost a full newspaper column, Wexler summed up the feelings of manywhen he wrote:James Pickett will ever live in the memory of those who knewHim best as one of the truest, purest, manliest of men, as wellAs one of the rarest geniuses this Northwest as ever produced.Young Pickett is buried in River View Cemetery in Portland, not far from the Chapel near aspot it is said he visited often to paint pictures of Mt. Hood, Mt. St. Helens, and sunsets over theColumbia and Willamette Rivers.